Nothing Ever Happens in Sioux Falls
by Slinky-and-the-BloodyWands
Summary: After realizing the extent of his son's involvement with the murders and strange occurrences that have plagued Beacon Hills over the past year, Sheriff Stilinski decides his son should spend the summer with his aunt in South Dakota, one Sheriff Jody Mills. Of course, Stiles being Stiles, he can't stay out of trouble.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note** : The setting for this story is SPN post season 5/pre season 6 and TW post season 2/pre-season3. The time kind of (maybe?) lines up, but I'm taking liberties obviously. Fair warning, Sam and Dean aren't main characters in this story.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated, even if I'm not always able to use them, and while I don't always reply to reviews, I read and cherish ever one of them. This story was finally completed thanks to a nifty LJ comm called WIPBigBang. Thanks for reading.

* * *

Sheriff Noah Stilinski ran a calloused hand down his face, trying and failing to wipe his mental slate clean. The past few months had been exhausting. No, correction, the past _year_ had been exhausting. But he had thought (foolishly, he was certain) that closing a case meant being able to file it away out of his memory. Out of sight, out of mind. He was wrong. Especially since all he could think about was how his own son was linked to that case.

"When did this even start?" he asked.

The empty office was predictably quiet, but he could picture what Stiles would have looked like if he'd been sitting in the seat across from the desk. Stiles would have flailed and commented on evidence of fast food in the trash can, asked how the new deputies were working out, and back-pedaled until his dad had completely forgotten the whole point of the conversation. Stiles was skilled in that area, which was why Noah had decided not to bother with questioning his son directly.

Now he wished his son was there to distract him, to get these thoughts out of his head, but once they were there, once he'd noticed the obvious number of coincidences...He couldn't just erase that knowledge:

His son was involved.

It wasn't that he was previously unaware that Stiles had shown up at one too many crime scenes lately. Noah was good at his job, despite what a few of Beacon Hills' more influential higher-ups liked to say about him, so he knew what it would look like to anyone but him. But he also _knew_ Stiles.

Noah stared down at the photograph in his hands. It was a still from a surveillance video showing his son wearing a shocked expression as a man who was impersonating a deputy held an arm around his neck, threatening to press a needle into his throat. Perhaps that was the moment, when he'd looked through the videos to find out how the impersonator had gotten to the jail cells, that he realized how many close brushes with danger that Stiles had had over the year, from being chased through the high school when the janitor was murdered, to being on the scene after the mechanic was killed...And those were altogether different cases, but Stiles tied them together.

Even knowing that there was a link, he'd pushed the information to the back of his mind, especially after they'd discovered the guilty party was Kate Argent in the first instance, Matt Daehler in the second.

Noah shook his head, almost sick at his stomach when he imagined Matt's gun being pointed in his son's direction. Another close brush, another connection. There was no one in his office to see him, no one there to ponder why he was looking over these cases again, because he was afraid of what they'd think. What they'd see when they looked at his son's less than spectacular timing.

He would have been able to drop it. Maybe let him and his kid work out what all these lies between them were about lately. _Maybe_ he would have if he hadn't decided to look deeper into what happened on the lacrosse field the night Jackson Whittemore was falsely reported as deceased. He'd actually bought the story about Stiles disappearing because of the other team, getting roughed up by rowdy teenagers. Even though it didn't make sense that any of them would have been in the frame of mind to pick a fight, not with a kid down on the field. Still, it was a likely story, considering that not everyone found Stiles' sarcasm entertaining and fights like that weren't exactly uncommon between boys their age.

Noah would have let it go, if he hadn't decided, weeks later, to visit the field, check out the school on a whim. That's when he'd overheard a conversation between a few of Stiles' teammates. The kids hadn't even noticed him, and Noah had already questioned them about the incident with Jackson. He'd almost ignored what they were saying before he heard one of them, Greenberg, make a joke about Principal Argent losing his job over Stiles.

There it was. Some implied tone. A _leer_ between the words.

Greenberg had gone pale, losing his smile when he realized the sheriff was listening in, and tried to backtrack out of the comment. Noah hadn't let him.

The kid said he was just joking. Just joking…Why? Because right before Jackson went down, he'd seen Stiles standing between two strange men, seen them walk him off the field. The three of them had gotten into Principal Argent's SUV. Argent himself had joined them a few minutes later, and they'd driven off. Driven off with _his son_.

Noah decided right then that Greenberg must be a moron, because the kid still didn't seem to understand the importance of what he was saying.

"Was that before or after Stiles took a beating?" Noah had snapped, getting a bit too into the boy's personal space.

Greenberg swallowed hard. "What beating?"

Noah hadn't been able to continue the conversation. For half a second he'd considered calling Stiles, demanding answers. But he knew what demanding answers would get him. Stiles would come up with a lie.

Noah quickly closed the file laying across his desk, hiding the information inside from view. He didn't want to think about it, about Stiles missing half a night and coming home hurt. He hated himself a little for letting his son weasel his way out of the situation with a lame excuse. God, had he been more hurt than he appeared? Had Argent really done something to his boy?

Noah pushed away, forcing himself to his feet but stopping before the movement turned into nervous pacing. He calmed himself with one steadying thought: he'd find out. He'd find out, and he'd make the ones responsible tell him exactly what had happened.

Because Stiles sure as hell wouldn't.

Whatever his son was going through, whatever bad situations he'd found himself in, Stiles was playing this close to his chest. Asking him for the truth and expecting a real answer? Well, that was out of the question.

Noah couldn't say for certain the moment when he decided his next course of action, because somehow the cell phone was already in his hand before his mind caught up with his body. His finger hovered over her name and private number. He'd only stored it a few short weeks ago. Before then, communication between them meant calling her office and hoping for the best.

"Noah?" Her voice sounded unsure.

He took a moment to appreciate the fact that she'd answered after seeing his name on the screen.

"Jody," he returned, then hesitated. How the hell did he start this conversation again?

"Wow." She let out a deep breath. "Look at us. Two calls in a month's time. Must be a record. Everything ok?"

He blinked back the sting in his eyes, hating himself a little for letting the comment get to him. He wasn't sure if the tears were sad ones or happy ones. It was always hard to tell when he was dealing with his baby sister. Jesus. He hadn't even let himself think of her as his 'baby sister' in so long that the term felt wrong, even in his head. She was Sheriff Jody Mills these days, and if he wasn't slightly scared of her temper, he would have made a joke about her following in her brother's footsteps.

They weren't close enough for a joke like that. Not yet.

Two calls was accurate. And indeed a record. Last year, such a call would have been downright bizarre, but over the past few months, they'd been trying to reconnect. It was slow work, and he knew he hadn't been putting in the effort, but the circumstances weren't ideal, either. It was hard enough to talk to someone who'd been out of his life for so long. Harder still when it was a tragedy that had forced him to make the first move.

The same thing had happened not three years back, when little Owen had...Noah closed his eyes. He didn't want to even think about his nephew, a child he never even knew outside a photo. It was too painful, and when Jody had called hoping for his help, his support, he hadn't done all he could to give it. He was still dealing with his Claudia's death, still feeling his way through being a single dad working full time, still trying to avoid another swig from the bottle.

He shouldn't have been surprised this time around, when she hadn't called him at all. Her world had crumbled, and he'd found out by accident. Sean Mills of Sioux Falls, dead in a bizarre accident.

He'd taken a weekend to go see her by himself, but he couldn't afford much more time off. It hadn't been a warm reunion. It hadn't healed any wounds. But it was a start. The next few phone calls between them, he'd hoped for more, but found them struggling to talk. They were two adults now, not kids, and he didn't really know who Jody-the-adult was.

Why the hell would he call her right now? Why would he think she'd be fine with this?

"Noah?" she asked, sounding worried by his silence. "Are you alright? Is Stiles ok?"

"No," he said, not really meaning to. He sighed to himself. His kid was going to hate him for this. "No, Stiles...He's not ok. I think he's in trouble. Jody, I know I don't deserve it, but I need some help."


	2. Chapter 2

"So, yeah. Sioux Falls. So much for summer break."

"I can't believe your dad is sending you away." Scott's big puppy eyes were a weapon that Stiles wished his dad was not immune to. Scott crossed the bedroom, slouching down onto the end of Stiles' bed, where his friend was sitting cross-legged, elbows propped on his knees. "Can he even do that?" Scott asked, sounding sincere. "You don't even know this woman. She could be a serial killer or something."

"I'm sure she's perfectly vanilla," Stiles' assured, in a tone of voice that implied being normal was possibly worse than being Hannibal Lecter. "And, no, apparently forcing your son to go on a summer trip isn't actually child endangerment."

He bit down a grin at Scott's groan of frustration.

There was a tiny part of Stiles that was ashamed that he was suddenly happier than he'd felt in weeks at seeing Scott so distressed. Not that Stiles liked to see Scott upset, but there were times over the past year when Scott's devotion seemed to focus solely on one Allison Argent, despite her recent dip into Darth territory. Selfish as it felt, Stiles was glad for the reminder that Scott cared if he was around. It was nice to know someone was going to miss him, because, honestly, he wasn't sure his dad was going to. In fact, he thought his dad might even relish the chance to relax without Stiles around.

 _Ok. Unfair. Whatever._ Sure, he could see it from his dad's perspective, but Stiles couldn't quite bring himself to forgive him entirely, not when his dad was basically giving him an unspoken ultimatum: _either spend the better part of the summer in South Dakota or tell me what you've been hiding from me lately._

And there was not a chance in Hell of Stiles doing that, of him telling his dad the truth. He wasn't even going to bring that part of his "choice" up to Scott or, if Hell froze over, Mr. Grumpy-McAlpha, because he didn't _need_ their permission to tell his dad anything...because Sheriff Stilinski was _never_ going to know about the supernatural if Stiles could help it.

It seemed like ever since Stiles had found out what roamed in the dark (and in the high school hallways), he'd been in some sort of danger. He wasn't going to let his dad get involved in that, not when just being part of Stiles' Scooby Gang shenanigans had nearly gotten him killed by Matt. Stiles was going to keep his dad _safe_. Even if it meant lying. Even if it meant going to South Dakota to live with a strange woman he was supposed to call "Aunt" Jody.

Aunt Jody. He couldn't even remember what his _supposed_ relative looked like. Sure, there were a few old pictures of his dad as a teen, a young girl beside him. And on extremely rare occasion, his dad would tell a story about his childhood, and Jody's name would pop up. But when Stiles tried to ask about her? Most of what he received was an abrupt explanation: "we lost touch."

Stiles had put together enough clues over the years to add what his dad hadn't said: "after your grandmother died" and "after she went to live with your great aunt, and I went to live my life."

Stiles hadn't pried. Which was admittedly a bizarre occurrence, but...well, he'd reached the age when kids wanted to hear their family secrets at about the same time his mom had gotten sick. Any _Aunt Jody Mysteries_ had been put on hold right then, and, for the most part, he'd lost his desire to know more; she was just some lady halfway across the country, and he had a dad to look after at home.

A dad he wouldn't be _able_ to look after for at least two long months.

Stiles felt Scott's hand on his shoulder and realized his breathing had gotten a bit erratic. He closed his eyes, trying to calm it down. This wasn't a panic attack. He could tell the difference. But he could hear a little voice in his head, making a note of the moment, promising to remind him of it again, at exactly the most inopportune time.

"I'll keep an eye on him, Stiles."

Stiles forced a small smile onto his face. "I know that, man."

"Even if I'm mad at him for taking my best friend away," Scott added, then grinned. "I'll inspect his fridge, too. If he thinks he's going to get away with bacon and donuts this summer, he's wrong."

"Oh, I like this new vengeful streak of yours," Stiles said, chuckling. "Thanks..." He sobered slightly. "I mean it. Thanks."

Scott nodded, then chewed on his bottom lip, as if trying to stop himself from saying more. "Your dad isn't who I'm worried about," he confessed. "Who's going to watch your back? You don't know anyone out there."

Stiles raised a brow. "Dude, I hate to tell you this, but I'm not a werewolf. Or a lizard person. You're the one who needs to be looked after. I mean, sure your mom will probably keep you grounded, for, literally, the entire summer, but who's going to take you out for walks while I'm gone? Or teach you to fetch?"

Stiles was expecting the smack from the pillow. He feigned offense when he recovered from the blow to find Scott still looking doubtful.

"Dude," Stiles sighed. Sometimes, he missed the days when _he_ was the one looking out for Scott, before superpowers were a thing. "Not every place can be as big a supernatural magnet as Beacon Hills, right? I'm going to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Nothing _ever_ happens in Sioux Falls. I'll be fine."

Scott stared at him a long moment, but he finally nodded. "You're right. Of course you're right. Nothing ever happens in Sioux Falls."

"Of course I am." Stiles snorted, dramatically throwing himself back onto his mattress. "I'm going to spend the next few months bored out of my mind."

* * *

It was too quiet, and Noah didn't appreciate the silence. Not one bit. But he'd be damned if he broke it just yet, so he went on about his business, helping Stiles fit the cooler onto the floorboard behind the passenger's seat as his son stacked a second duffel bag into the back.

Ever since he'd been a baby, Stiles had been loud. Even when he was sleeping, the kid had a tendency to mutter nonsense. And when they were fighting? Stiles absolutely didn't know how to leave well enough alone. He always had to prove he was right or rattle off a random factoid in his favor...It was only when his kid was truly upset that he quit speaking. Noah would never admit it, but the silent treatment, as it turned out, was oddly effective.

He huffed out a loud breath, pinching the bridge of his nose and wishing the tension he felt was somehow related to spring allergies and not the blow-out he'd had with his son the evening before. When he looked up, Stiles was staring at him, something like regret in his amber eyes, but the tightness at his mouth, his shoulders... Noah could read that body language clearly enough. His son wasn't going to say another word until _he_ said something first.

Noah opened his mouth. Closed it again. He could tell the kid what he needed to hear. For once, he knew exactly what to say to make it better, but he just couldn't...he couldn't manage another lie. Because that's what it would be. He could apologize all day long, but he couldn't say the right thing:

"I do trust you, Stiles."

Mostly he couldn't say it because he'd already confessed the direct opposite last night:

 _"How about you start with the truth?"_

 _"Come on! I'm not part of a gang. I haven't gotten mixed up in drugs or human trafficking or whatever the hell you've cooked up. God, Dad, can't you just trust me on this?"_

 _"No, Stiles. I can't! I can't trust a word coming out of your mouth, because you lie. I'm not sure if there's a single honest story you've told me over the past six months. If you can't tell me what's really going on in your life, then I have to do this. You chose to lie and now you've got to deal with the consequences, kid."_

Noah didn't mean to word it that way, to make it sound like he was sending Stiles away as some sort of punishment. This was supposed to be about protecting his boy, about keeping Stiles out of his investigation. But he'd made it into something else, and he couldn't forget the way his son had just deflated as soon as the words were out in the open. Stiles had walked away from the argument, defeated. A look Noah would never enjoy seeing on his son.

Noah had half-reasoned that he'd be facing another fight by morning, a struggle to get bags packed and his son sent on his way. Instead, Stiles had woken up earlier than him. Had already made himself a stack of sandwiches for the road and was checking over the Jeep before Noah had even managed to wipe the sleep out of his eyes.

They'd barely exchanged ten words.

"Stiles," Noah finally said. He stared his son down for a long minute. "Don't give your aunt a hard time."

 _Shit_. Noah bit the inside of cheek to stop from taking it back. He'd meant to say something else, anything else. Stiles only nodded along.

"I won't," he assured. "Take care of yourself, Dad."

Noah was sure he'd said something about traffic and locking his motel door at night. He was sure he said goodbye. But his kid was already down the road when he remembered to say, "I'll miss you, Stiles."

Noah shook his head and walked back into his too-quiet house, deciding right then he'd get this over with as quickly as possible. He'd find out the truth, get to the bottom of whatever was happening in his town, and then he'd get his kid back home, where he belonged.

* * *

If anyone asked, it was an accident. It truly was. He absolutely did not mean to find out, but come on, there were only so many different ways to spend an evening at a disgustingly cheap motel without bleeding his already limited funds (and using the free wi-fi to watch videos grew stale on day one of his "Great American Roadtrip").

Which, that part, the one where he had way too much time on his hands and hours upon hours of driving to over-think every decision he'd made in his life, that part _was_ his fault, because he'd practically begged his dad to let him take Roscoe instead of getting a plane ticket. And his persuasion via power point presentation had included the fact that the price wouldn't be much different, the reminder that he wouldn't have to rely upon Jody to get from one place to another, and the final slide had noted that it would be a wonderful experience for someone his age. (He did not include this top two reasons: shaving days off his time in Sioux Falls by dragging ass and having a ready escape vehicle if/when it became too unbearable.) His dad had folded surprisingly quickly with a few comments about road safety and following the speed limit. Stiles had seen the guilt on his face and not felt the least bit bad about exploiting it.

Maybe his dad _did_ care that he was sending him to God-Knows-Where. Or, Stiles bitterly thought, maybe it was just easier not to argue so long as Stiles Stilinski was out of Beacon Hills.

But that was beside the point. Because he knew he'd be up to his neck in looks of disappointment if his dad found out what he'd stayed up to four in the morning researching while he was supposed to be getting a good night's rest before another day of driving. Not that he could imagine his father being any more disappointed than he was during that oh-so-lovely send-off fight they'd gotten in to. The one that Stiles was purposely pushing to the very back of his mind...

T'was boredom had led Stiles to a distraction in the form of Google. One Google search, of course, had led to another. Only natural, right? To Google the almost-a-stranger relative? To want to know a little about his new, temporary home? That was Stiles' argument and he was sticking to it, and also possibly lying through omission, since he was editing out the part where it took him several hours of digging through events on social media and blogs from locals to piece together the truly bizarre events surrounding the death of his uncle, Sean Mills.

Stiles was jittery, despite taking his meds, and his fingers drummed the steering wheel with nervous anticipation. Without thinking, he slowed slightly as he passed the sign that announced he was entering Sioux Falls county and considered pulling over and turning back. He could fake a flat, claim it took an extra day to get there. Easy enough to believe.

Instead, he kept driving. And he hated the fact that the reason he kept driving had little to do with meeting Aunt Jody and far more to do with wanting an answer to the questions suddenly plaguing him. Not that he could come out and ask. Not that he could just say, "Hey, Aunt Jody? So nice to meet you! So, this is where I'm sleeping? Is this the same room where Uncle Sean was ripped apart in an apparent home invasion that was later determined to be a freak animal attack?"

Yeah. He probably shouldn't lead with that. And he definitely shouldn't lead with his follow-up: "Was that, by chance, any way related to all those bodies disappearing from the cemetery in a grave yard heist that was seemingly covered-up by local officials, yourself included?"

Yeah. Not that one either.

He took a deep breath, trying to push down his curiosity. Failing, but trying was worth something, right? He groaned in frustration.

He'd been told, on several occasions actually, how extremely annoying (and sometimes extremely inconsiderate by most social standards) his tendency to fixate on subjects could be. Occasionally, the habit was useful (see "werewolves" for example) but more often than not, it got him into trouble.

He was completely aware that he needed to let this go. At least for now. But that wasn't happening. What he could do, what he _had_ to do, was keep it to himself. Keep his current "investigation" private.

Easier said than done.

* * *

When she'd last seen him, he'd been a child, skinny and energetic, a big smile plastered on his face, and his amber eyes shining brightly. Jody had been told that picture was taken by Claudia. It was the last one Noah had sent her, the last one before his wife passed. She knew there were other ways to find out what Stiles looked like these days, other ways to get to know him. For starters, she could have asked Noah. They'd started talking again; it would have been a fair request. But she'd held her tongue. And she hadn't gone the obvious route, scouring the internet. Just from his dad's comments, she knew he was the type of teenager to keep a web presence. And if that had failed, using her job to get an image would have been beyond easy.

But she hadn't. She hadn't looked. She hadn't tried. And she knew how that would sound, if she said it aloud, but she'd swear on her life, it had nothing to do with not caring. God, did she ever care...

But she didn't deserve to know what he looked like. That was the story she'd fed herself when the temptation rose to the surface. A decade ago, she would have still blamed Noah for the distance between them, but these days? These days she had a lot of time to reflect. Too much time. And she knew she was just as fault for what happened between them.

Now, she suddenly wished she knew what Stiles, the teenager, looked like. As if that would somehow make things less awkward, to be able to pretend this face was familiar.

Jody gripped the door of her patrol car a bit too tightly before finally shutting it. She'd been sitting in the car for the last ten minutes, staring up at her house, aware that it wouldn't be quite so empty tonight, and awaiting another update from Stiles. The kid had been sending her a text message at least twice a day, impersonal updates on his location that she was certain his dad had insisted on. The last message put him in the county, and she'd rushed home, parked, and sat since then, not wanting it to look like she was loitering in her own yard, waiting for him to arrive and hoping to pretend as if she'd just gotten home from work as he was pulling in.

"Come on, Jody. He's just a teenager."

A teenager. The most terrifying being known to mankind. And he was going to be living with her for the summer. Because it was too _dangerous_ for him to stay at home...When Noah had filled her in on what was going on, she'd been full of questions. She felt the part of her that thrived on being a sheriff show up to the conversation, but she'd held her tongue, tried not to ask for information Noah wasn't ready to give her. But she knew enough. She knew her nephew had a tendency to get involved with criminals, had managed to get hit with a restraining order, had lied about getting hurt.

"What the hell did I even agree to?" she muttered, stepping around her car and taking a deep breath. She forced herself to loosen up, smile, even if there was no one to see it. Hopefully she wouldn't look as nervous as she felt.

The timing wasn't far off. Noah had told her about the old Jeep the kid was driving. She saw the powder blue of its boxy frame as it rounded the turn-off to her neighborhood. She lifted a hand, stiffly waving in its direction. He must have seen her because a second later he was slowing down in front of her driveway, easing his vehicle into a spot next to hers. She froze when she heard the creak of his door opening.

The kid was taller than her, still somewhat skinny and still bright-eyed as he was in his photograph. She was almost surprised she could recognize him, could see her brother in his low brow, in the cut of his jaw. She imagined that face covered in bruises, as Noah had described, and felt an unwelcome tightness in her stomach. He didn't look like a troubled boy or a troublemaker. What he did look like was an overgrown kid. Owen would have been a couple years younger than him, and it occurred to her for the first time that this was going to be harder than she'd planned, seeing a boy in her house every day and remembering it wasn't the _right_ one. Jody swallowed hard, unsure of what to say.

"Hi?" Stiles said, and made it sound like a question. "Um. So...I'm Stiles." From the way he glanced over his shoulder, back at his Jeep, Jody worried he might hop back inside it and take off.

"I hope you like meat," she said, quickly. She blinked, trying to stop herself from continuing and failing. "And dairy. I mean, I hope you aren't lactose intolerant because that would be...I made lasagna. Yesterday, so it's leftover. That's what I meant to say: 'Hope you like lasagna.' Which has meat and cheese in it, and I completely forgot to ask your dad if you had any food allergies or if you were a vegetarian." Her cheeks hurt, thanks to her forced smile. She was absolutely not telling Noah about this introduction. "Oh, and hi! I'm your aunt. Sheriff Mills. I mean Jody. I'm your aunt Jody."

Stiles' lip twitched, like he was fighting a grin. He let out a slow sigh, and she could almost see the tension bleeding out of him. "Yeah," he chirped, maybe a touch of sarcasm in his tone, but Jody didn't take offense. "I can definitely tell. Also, lasagna would be great."


	3. Chapter 3

Snooping was a strong word. A very strong word. And Stiles would rather adamantly pretend he didn't know the definition of said word if he was caught. But, since Jody was still asleep, and he was up bright and early (a bizarre event when followed by actual sleep and not pulling an all-nighter), he thought he should take advantage of the opportunity to simply "observe" his new temporary dwelling. And if he happened upon juicy information while observing, so be it.

Stiles nodded to himself, sure his reasoning made sense, and ventured out into the main living area, peeking out the window at the quiet, gray morning and the equally quiet neighborhood. There were houses close by, but not so close that it would be odd for them not to hear, say, a violent animal attack or home invasion. He turned back, staring at the room.

Jody had given him a brief tour when he'd arrived, shown him all the basics including his bedroom. From its stale state, he assumed it had always been used for storage and not actually lived in. No, if he was to venture a guess, the second bedroom upstairs, the one she pointedly didn't point out, the one beside her own master bedroom, that was the one he was sure belonged to his cousin once. Jody hadn't so much as acknowledged it before circling them back to the kitchen and clapping her hands in anticipation of a lasagna that she assured only needed a few minutes to warm in the oven.

Stiles had expected awkwardness at the dinner table. And he wasn't wrong, but he'd been surprised when he found himself asking a random question about how her station was like the one in Beacon Hills and receiving an actual answer. She'd seemed happy for a safe subject to chat about, and they chuckled about pranking new deputies and complained about uniform prices.

Honestly, it hadn't been as painful as Stiles expected. Afterward, they'd watched one of the dozen reality tv shows focused on musical talent and turned in early. Stiles had shot his dad a text message, still feeling too bitter for a call, and chatted with Scott a few minutes, fully expecting to go into research mode right after. Only, apparently, those nights in motels had caught up with him. He'd slept through the night, easier than he had lately in his own bedroom.

He wouldn't admit that, if asked.

Which brought him back to the reason he was up early. Stiles sighed. If anything, the living room was kind of boring. There was an attempt at sparse decor and evidence of life near the couch, a throw blanket, a recipe magazine, but mostly, it looked like Aunt Jody was a bit like his dad-she probably spent more time at work than here. He wandered over to a low stand that looked more decorative than practical. He could see a few DVDs stored on the lower shelves, a pair of abandoned coffee table books stacked beside them, but on the top, there were two framed photos. One a family portrait, one a candid of a small boy trying to do a head stand on the front lawn.

Stiles reached out, planning to pick up the picture, bring it closer to his face, but it felt wrong, moving it. Instead he leaned in, staring at the family portrait. Jody's hair was longer, the boy even smaller and hanging from his dad's neck. Sean Mills looked like a happy man, satisfied with his life. They all looked so content. And why shouldn't they? Their lives were good, in that one moment. Stiles swallowed hard, unsure why his throat suddenly felt swollen. He didn't know these people. Not really. He'd met Jody yesterday. He'd never even…

He stood up a bit straighter, forcing himself to stop looking at his uncle and cousin and their frozen smiles. His eyes went to the pretty stone plate sitting beneath the stand's lone lamp. Stiles had a similar catch-all dish beside their front entrance, where his dad dropped his keys on a daily basis. This one was missing keys. Instead it held forgotten treasures, a half-dollar and a couple business cards, a peppermint and a pair of silver stud earrings, a man's gold watch. The face of the watch was dusty, and Stiles wiped his finger over it instinctively. He had a feeling Jody hadn't forgotten the old watch was there. He and Dad had left little alters for Mom for a while, until it became too painful to see them every day.

Stiles' fingers hesitated over the business cards, and he flipped the top one, a cleaning service ad, over and saw the second was for a salvage yard. He could guess how a sheriff might need to get in touch with salvage yard owners, considering the number of thieves in the habit of trying to scrap stolen vehicles. For a moment, he didn't even realize what had caught his eye about the card. It was simple: SINGER AUTO SALVAGE written across the top, a phone number beneath. Cheap clip art of a tow truck took up the negative space. It was yellowed, soft around the edges like it had been carried in a wallet too long. When he picked it up, he realized the dark red, almost brown, shade blotching one corner wasn't from the print.

"Is that blood?" he muttered, frowning.

"You hungry?"

Stiles jumped at the sound of Jody's voice. He instinctively curled his fingers around the card, palming it as he dropped his hand to his side. "What?"

Standing in the entry to the kitchen, she was still in sweats and a t-shirt, her hair sticking up on one side. She raised a brow at him. "Breakfast. Would you like some before I head to work?"

Her gaze dropped, and Stiles knew the moment she'd spotted the photograph. Some of the light left her eyes and a small, forced smile slid into place. She stepped into the room, closer.

"Owen would have liked having an older cousin," she said, quietly. "He had so much energy, always asking questions, bouncing off the walls and expecting his dad and me to keep up." She blinked, taking a quick step back and gesturing toward the kitchen. "Let me show you around the pantry, in case you need to cook while I'm gone. Do you cook? You must, because heaven knows Noah can't, and you don't look like you might be starving to death."

Stiles chewed his cheek, following her. "I'm sorry," he said, after a moment.

She shook her head as she walked over to the cabinets. "Nothing for you to be sorry for, Stiles."

"But there's something for my dad to be sorry for?" he tried.

Her body tensed a moment, before she went back to pulling out a few drawers. "Do you like pancakes?" she asked, pulling out an egg flipper.

Stiles opened and closed his mouth. "Uh… sure. I like pancakes."

Stiles ran a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly out of place, and remembered the card in his hand. Before Jody could turn around, he pocketed it and offered to give her a hand, pulling out eggs and buttermilk when directed, finding a mixing bowl. He caught a glimpse of the time on her microwave and winced. It was early, but he wondered if she was going to be late for work, trying to feed him.

She must have read his mind and shook her head. "I don't have a long drive," she assured. "We have time to eat. So, have you thought about what you're going to be doing this summer?"

Stiles raised a brow at the question. "Call of Duty?"

"Try again," she implored, sounding way too much like his father.

He felt slightly offended, but reigned it in. "What do you mean? Like catching up on my summer reading list?"

"Actually…" She hesitated, taking a moment to flip their first batch. "I might have some work for you to do."

Stiles perked up. "At the station?" Because _that_ , that would actually be useful.

"Not so much," she said, chuckling quietly. "But I thought it might be best to keep you busy, since you're stuck here and all. So, I have some odd jobs lined up for you. Just some neighborhood work to make sure you're not bored out of your mind."

"Community service." Stiles rolled his eyes. "Well, I guess I'm getting off easy if I'm just mowing lawns and cutting hedges."

Jody gave him a pointed glance. "This isn't punishment."

"Really? Because that's what dad called it." Stiles snorted in amusement as he pulled a few plates out. He froze when he realized Jody was staring at him, her eyes wide. "What?"

"Your dad said that?" She shook her head, losing her grin. "Stiles, you're not here because you're in..." She trailed off. "Your dad thought it would be best for you to stay here a while, take a little break from home. I just don't want you stuck in a room all day, playing video games."

"You were going to say I'm not here because I'm in trouble, right?" Stiles cocked his head. "Only I am. Or, at least my dad thinks so. Did Dad tell you why he wanted me away from home? Because he can't handle me being there? Because he doesn't know what's going on with me? Did he even bother with an excuse before sticking you with a complete stranger? Honestly, I think you drew the short straw here."

"Stiles…"

"No." He cut her off, and instantly regretted it. He lost some of his steam when he realized she was struggling to find a helpful reply. This wasn't her fault. Or even his father's. This was _his_ thanks to his now-habitual lies, and he knew it, but that wasn't helping him feel any less pissed off. He let out a deep breath and piled a stack of pancakes onto his plate. "I'm going to go shove these into mouth until words stop coming out, if that's okay."

He turned his back on her, sitting down at the table with his food. A moment later, she sat a bottle of maple syrup beside him and took the seat opposite.

"Ms. Rose, down the road to the left," Jody said, suddenly. "She's the house with the weird blue door and shutters. I told her my nephew might stop by sometime this week to give her a hand moving an old chair. If you don't mind."

There seemed to be a question hanging in the air. Stiles nodded, glad to have a change in subject. "I can handle it," he replied, quietly. "I'll do it today."

Jody's smile looked a bit crooked, but she seemed satisfied with the answer. "Eat up, kiddo."

And if the nickname hurt a little, Stiles figured he deserved as much.

* * *

Ms. Rose, as it turned out, did need an old chair moved. She also needed her furniture in both her bedroom and her living room re-arranged. And she didn't believe in using her air conditioning unit. By the end of day two, which involved helping her put together two cat trees for her bundles of furry joy, Stiles was almost willing to take actual court mandated community service in exchange for "helping out around the neighborhood," as the syrupy sweet elderly woman had said while thanking him. Something about that salutation told him that word of his arrival might have spread.

"Dude, I'm pretty sure Jody pimped me out to every old lady in a ten mile radius."

From the sound of Scott choking on something, Stiles thought perhaps that might have not been the best way to say hello.

" _She what?"_

"You know, Scotty, we've talked about this before. Don't take a bite of your food while you're answering the phone. It's not a logical move."

" _I was chewing on gum."_ Scott back-peddled after the comment. " _What did you say about old ladies?"_

Stiles shook his head, despite the fact that his friend couldn't see him, and ran his arm over his brow, swiping off a layer of sweat. He regretted walking to Ms. Rose's house instead of taking his Jeep, but he hadn't considered that he'd be walking out of an oven and into another oven by late afternoon.

"I might actually be dying of heat stroke," he noted, into the phone. "Which might be preferable to white washing fences and rescuing cats from trees, because apparently I'm the type of guy who enjoys doing that stuff, according to my aunt, who has volunteered me as free labor to everyone who has crossed her path. And no, I'm not actually sure I'm exaggerating."

Stiles realized the sound interrupting his tirade was laughter.

"Thanks for the compassion, asshole."

Scott made a noise, like he was trying and failing to hold it down. _"I'm sorry, man. Sounds rough. But, hey, at least there are no signs that she's something supernatural, so at least all your problems are human, right?"_

Despite the humor in his voice, Stiles could tell Scott was being serious when he'd turned that last statement into a question. Stiles felt a bit guilty, not sharing his info on Sean's death, but he knew Scott might overreact if he found out Stiles was going into full detective mode without back-up. And thus Scott would get in even more trouble with Melissa if he suddenly hitchhiked to South Dakota. Stiles decided to hold back until he had better information.

Like, his uncle may have actually been attacked my a mountain lion. In his living room. Sure.

"You know, it's my job to be the paranoid one," he commented, hoping it sounded casual. "But, yeah, so far, so human. Jody's…she's nice. I like her. As vanilla as predicted. I mean, I'm pretty sure she was recording a Lifetime movie yesterday, but she's nice."

" _That's good. Isn't it?"_

"Yeah. I mean, yeah. But it would be easier to maintain my angst if I didn't like her, you know? I'm still pissed at Dad for sending me here, but Jody's cool. Aside from trying to make sure I work myself onto a straight and narrow path. Maybe someone should suggest she take me to a prison instead, _a la Scared Straight_."

" _Yeah, because that's preferable to helping the elderly."_

Stiles huffed. He almost reminded Scott that his dad had made both of them volunteer to help the elderly when they were pre-teens and that Scott had been the one to freak out over dentures and diapers. But he decided to be the bigger person. Just this once. "Fine. It's not so bad. It is actually hot as Hell, though. Allow me that one complaint."

Scott chuckled. " _I feel for you._ " He grew quiet a moment before speaking again. _"So this thing happened yesterday."_

"Oh God…Is anyone dead?"

" _No! Nothing that bad. Just, your dad sent me a text and asked if I'd have lunch with him tomorrow."_

"It's a trap."

" _Come on, Stiles."_

"It's a trap. You're walking right into an interrogation, Scotty." Stiles came to a stop, noticing Jody's car was parked in front of the house. He eased up to the side of a tree, leaning against it, hopefully out of sight and earshot of his aunt. "You can't go."

" _You told me to keep an eye on him. I have to, you know, see him to do that."_

"Yes, but on your terms. Him inviting you to lunch less than a week after I'm gone? This is completely calculated." Stiles pinched the bridge of his nose. "You can't tell my dad the truth, okay?"

" _I'm not."_

"For real, though. Don't tell him anything. Even the things you think it's safe to tell him."

" _I'd have to actually know that stuff to tell him that stuff. Like, what happened to you that night everything went down. With the bruises. You never told me the whole story, Stiles."_

"Scott." Stile bit his lip to stop himself from speaking. He'd told his friend enough. It was Gerard. That was all Scott needed to know. He didn't want Scott feeling guilty, and he certainly didn't want Scott thinking his best friend was some liability for hunters to use again them. "Not right now. It's been a long day. Just, make sure Dad doesn't eat junk food when you go to lunch with him tomorrow. Talk later, okay? Bye."

Scott had barely muttered a goodbye when Stiles ended the call. Stiles pocketed his phone and glanced up at Jody's house, groaning at the thought of going in and making small talk about his day when what he really wanted to do was cut straight to investigation mode. For that, though, he needed to drive around town, see what he could learn from the locals about the night Sean died, because the image painted by the information he'd collected so far had just raised more questions. Like, he'd attempted to find related incidents and discovered there were at least three suspicious deaths the very same night Sean died. The information on them was decidedly vague.

He realized there was movement right in front of him, Jody waving at him from the doorway. He waved back and walked up the drive. Detective work would have to wait.


	4. Chapter 4

Noah poked at a limp stalk of steamed broccoli, attempting to keep his contempt for it at bay when he smiled up at Scott. "Thanks for ordering for me, son. You really, _really_ didn't have to."

And if Scott's shit-eating grin didn't remind him way too much of his Stiles as he took a big bite from his burger… "No problem. I figured you'd be in a hurry to get back to the office."

"Actually, I told the guys I was taking a long lunch break."

Scott's face fell slightly, and Noah considered that a win.

 _Gotcha, kid._

The young man glanced around the small diner, as if hoping to conveniently find someone he recognized. Anything that could offer a distraction. Noah almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He knew that lunch with the kid shouldn't be awkward at all. God only knew how many times Scott had made himself at home around Noah, from digging around the kitchen cabinets for snacks to asking for help learning to shave. And Noah loved having Scott in his life, especially since Scott seemed to be good at keeping Stiles out of trouble. Or he had until this past year.

Noah narrowed his gaze on the teen. Scott had filled out recently, transitioning from a kid into a young man, and maybe he had changed in other ways too. Noah had always considered Scott the more level-headed of the dynamic duo, but lately, after what happened with the "prank" on the Whittemore kid… Well, Noah knew that if Stiles was keeping secrets from him, that meant Scott was too.

"Got somewhere to be?" Noah asked, when Scott fidgeted in his seat.

"Uh, yeah actually," Scott answered. He backtracked with a crooked grin. "But, I mean, not until after lunch. Just. Just seeing some friends."

Noah raised a brow. "Allison?" he asked.

Scott's brow wrinkled, as if he'd been kicked under the table. "No. Allison and her dad moved. I mean, they're gone for the summer I think. Not that… Not that I'm with Allison. We broke up."

Noah knew as much. His first step in his investigation was to locate Gerard Argent and have a little _chat_ with him about his relationship with his son. Unfortunately, he'd been unable to locate the Argent patriarch. Or any of the Argents. He'd managed to contact Chris by phone, but the man had evaded his questions.

"So you haven't heard from her since school let out?" Noah popped a mushy carrot into his mouth, already guessing the answer. But he was curious about one thing: "Who are you hanging out with these days?"

"You mean since you sent my best friend away?"

"Fair enough." Noah sighed, eating in silence a moment longer. "If I knew what was going on with Stiles, I…" He trailed off when he realized Scott was glaring at him.

"Why don't you trust Stiles?"

Noah winced. "So, I guess he told you about our fight?"

"I haven't been a great friend to Stiles lately, okay?" Scott shook his head. "But I'm going to figure things out this summer. I'm going to be a better son, a better student, and a better person. But Stiles doesn't need to work on those things. He's already good enough, and if you really sent him away to try and teach him something, maybe you haven't figured that out."

"Scott, I know you're mad, but you have to understand, whatever Stiles has gotten into, it's dangerous." Noah ran a hand over his mouth, trying to keep himself in check. "What do you know about the night Stiles was beaten up?"

Scott blinked. "As much as you know, I guess," he said, a bit too slowly for Noah's liking.

"I always thought you were the honest one, Scott. You're telling me that your best friend didn't tell you what really happened that night?" Noah leaned forward, his voice lower and his gaze focused on the teen. "I already know about Gerard. Don't let my imagination fill in the holes, kid."

It was there and gone in a flash: shock. Scott swallowed hard before a mask of confusion fell over his face. "Principal Argent? What's he have to do with that?"

Noah had to bite his lip. He already regretted playing the Argent card too soon. Scott would be on the phone with Stiles before he was out of the parking lot. Noah forced down the accusation at his throat. "Why didn't Gerard do anything to find the kids who beat up Stiles?" he asked.

Scott hesitated before shrugging and shoving his burger into his mouth. He seemed to be doing his best to finish his plate in under five minutes, and Noah had a feeling that as soon as the last French fry disappeared, the kid would come up with an excuse to fly out the door.

If he'd asked, Mel might have helped keep him here, but Noah hadn't been in a hurry to talk to her. After the situation at the station, Melissa had barely spoken to him, and he understood why. It was a traumatizing night for all of them, and he was the sheriff (or close enough). He should have done a better job at protecting them. Maybe she blamed him. Maybe she just needed time to process. Either way, he hoped his own friend would be back in his corner soon. It seemed getting Scott to fold without her was going to prove more difficult than expected.

Scott pretended to check his text messages and muttered something about his friends. These unnamed friends. Noah knew if he dared ask who Scott was off to see, he'd just turn this discussion into a full interrogation.

"Scott, I'm just trying to protect Stiles," Noah said, before the boy could flee. "I can't do that if I don't know what's going on."

Scott opened his mouth, as if to answer, and Noah hoped whatever he said would help. Instead Scott scowled, as if mentally arguing with himself.

"Stiles is a lot like you," he finally said. He disappeared out the front door before Noah could reply.

Noah stared after him, his stomach sour. That answer hadn't made him feel better, not even a little, but he'd figure this out soon enough. Perhaps, he reasoned, his aim here had been off. Maybe asking about the "fight" Stiles had supposedly been in wasn't the right direction.

"When did it start?" Noah muttered to himself, not for the first time.

He needed to look further back. Gerard Argent wasn't even in town when Stiles first started acting different. Granted, his psychopathic daughter had been…Noah pinched his brow, frustrated at himself for not considering what tied those things together. Derek Hale. Whose family was killed by said-Argent. And who had been wrongly accused of murder by Stiles Stilinski and Scott McCall.

Noah realized he was working this case all wrong. There was someone he should have spoken to before Scott.

"Hale."

* * *

By the fourth day, Stiles could barely smell the cats. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing, or if it was due to Freckles, an ancient orange and white tabby, finding his lap a more comfortable rest area than the newly assembled carpet trees his siblings, Fluffernutter and Jingle-Bella, had taken over. Stiles scooped up the large cat, gently moving him to a different spot on the sofa. Freckles didn't so much as twitch, which Stiles, frowning down at the guy, hoped wasn't an indicator that he was headed toward the big litter box in the sky.

"Oh, don't worry. Freckles still has a few years left in him, sweet boy," Ms. Rose crooned with a slow Southern lilt as she hobbled back into the room with a tray holding a glass of lemonade and a platter of snicker doodle cookies, "even if he is almost as old as his mamma."

Stiles stood up to stop the shaky tray from toppling forward and eased it down onto the coffee table. "You know, you really didn't have to. I could just come back another time." He trailed off as he noticed she hadn't moved from her spot, her hands folded over the too-high waist of her flower-y frock. He tilted his head in apology. "Thank you, Ms. Rose," he relented.

"That's a good boy." The woman gave him a sugary grin that made her eyes all but disappear under the thick plastic frames of her tinted glasses. "You've been such a good helper today, hanging those bird-feeders, cleaning my oven. And I hate that the girls are running you off before you've started on the floor boards-"

"Hate that," he chirped.

"-but you know how we blue hairs are with our gossip," she continued. "We simply must have our little meetings or the whole group gets cranky, but I think you've earned your cookies today, yes you have. Rue huffed and puffed, but I told Rue, I told her, and loudly, because her hearing is going, you know, 'Rue, the boy is paper thin. Heaven knows that nice sheriff doesn't have time to make him a snack every day.'"

Or to oversee my nap time, Stiles bit down. "I'd starve without you, Ms. Rose," he assured her.

"If I let you waste away on my watch, I'm sure I'd hear about it," she noted. She chuckled at her joke, but held her place, watching him over the rim of her glasses, her back hunched behind her. "Eat up now, before Dorothy decides she needs to go to the bathroom again. You know how her bowels are."

Stiles didn't.

"I heard that!" someone called from the kitchen.

"Well, I know you did, Dorothy," she muttered. "Rue's the one the deaf one." She shook her head. "They treat me like I'm senile sometimes, just because they're still knocking on ninety's door. I'm barely a decade older than them."

"And you can't tell it," Stiles said.

He made a show of taking a snicker doodle and biting into it. It was delicious, as was most of Rose's baking, which he knew already because she'd required him to take regular snack breaks after he maybe-sorta-painfully struggled with moving her sofa on day one. It was a bit of a kick in the nads when he'd realized she'd gone from calling him a "young buck" the first morning to "a sweet boy" before lunch. Despite his physique being a let-down, she'd still supplied him with a to-do list.

So kind of her to find a place for the weakling, he thought, but it was hard to maintain his bitterness. Despite the chores and the lack of proper air conditioning, he kind of enjoyed entertaining the old woman. Not that he was admitting as much.

Rose settled down in the chair across from him, humming contently, and Fluffernutter's yellow butt landed on the armrest beside her.

Stiles tried to quite the tiny part of him that thought maybe she was trying to fatten him up to eat; he chalked that up to Beacon Hills paranoia. He swallowed down the bite of cookie and started a second one. _C'est la vie_ or whatever was French for "I hope Dad is eating healthier than I am."

"Hey, Rosie," because he'd realized there was no quicker way to her affections than nicknames, "have you lived in Sioux Falls for long?"

"Oh, no. Just the last thirty years or so," she assured. "We're from Georgia, my girls, moved up together we did. My lovely Beatrice was still with us back then." Her gaze was somewhat distance, a small, sad smile on her face. "We'd just had enough of the whole South by that point, moving around the state, trying to find a place to belong our whole lives. Soon as they saw us for what we were, the locals said they didn't want 'our kind' around. Called us all sorts of things. As if they didn't already know…Easy for people to turn a blind eye, I suppose, but my Bea, she was bold, even at our age, and she made it hard to keep our nature a secret."

Stiles raised a brow, hesitating mid-bite. A bit unexpected, he acknowledged, but now he was certain Rose wasn't inviting him over to look at his butt as he moved furniture. "Must have been tough. Back then, I mean. Being together… Yeah?"

"Hasn't gotten much better," Rose admitted, sounding disappointed. "But people here, as long as you don't call attention, they seem to leave well enough alone. We're happy here," she assured. "There are good people here. Like your aunt."

Stiles grinned. "She gets good ratings on Yelp," he agreed. At Rose's confusion, he leaned forward. "So, you were here when my uncle passed a few months ago?"

Rose frowned. "Such a tragedy. A bit out of the norm too, but it was good of them to keep it out of most the papers. We usually don't have problems like that around here."

"Like what? Like animal attacks?" Stiles asked

Rose opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again, looking somewhat dazed. "Madness, wasn't it? Then again, I've seen stranger things in my life," she finally replied. She slowly pushed herself back up from her chair, grinning pleasantly again once she was standing. "Do take the rest home to the sheriff, sweet boy."

* * *

"And I really wish I could slam this phone down," Jody snapped at the cell phone. Not that anyone was on the other end of the conversation. She'd long since pressed the END button after a grumpy goodbye to her brother.

She looked up, somewhat abashed, but glad she was still sitting in her cruiser, where no one could hear her talking to herself. She realized she hadn't so much as left the parking lot and hoped that no one had noticed her rather animated one-sided conversation.

"Four days, Jody. You made it four days before living with a teenager drove you crazy." She snorted at her own words, because they weren't exactly fair. No, it was more likely Noah driving her nutty than Stiles.

But Stiles was doing his part. She groaned, leaning forward to let her forehead rest on her steering wheel. It wasn't that her nephew was actively trying to make her paranoid, but she was starting to understand why her brother was so adamant that the kid was hiding something important. Because he was. Hiding something. She'd been in law enforcement long enough to know when someone was being shifty. She just wasn't sure what that secret _something_ might be.

Which had led her to calling Noah, which had led to the usual stilted arguments, but it was the part between that had her on edge. When Noah had first told her about the issues he'd been having with Stiles, he'd been decidedly vague, and she'd let it go. After all, even though they'd literally gone years without talking in the past, there was a time when they trusted each other completely. Plus, Jody didn't think she'd earned the right to details.

That, of course, had only satisfied her curiosity for so long, especially when Noah let slip that Stiles had been in the sheriff's department the night Beacon Hills had lost several fine deputies to a violent teenager with a weapon. The bones of the story were ones she'd heard on national news.

She'd decided not to mention it to Stiles outright. Instead she'd done a bit of research, and, okay, maybe she'd snooped a bit at Beacon County's crime rate and done a double take when she'd noted the murders committed over the past year, some of which had been attributed to a "mountain lion" who turned out to be a deranged woman in a few cases.

And, maybe, just maybe, her brother had just had a stroke of bad luck in his town, but her gut had twisted as soon as she'd read about incident after incident that didn't quite add up. Not too long ago, she would have just called it "bizarre" and not even considered it to be more than that, but those crimes…She didn't want to consider it, but there might have been something weird at work. Something supernatural even.

Jody took a shaky breath and sat back up straight, deciding she needed to do a bit of research before even considering such a thing. For the past few days, she'd worked extra hard to keep Stiles busy and out of trouble. Hopefully, he could entertain himself for a night alone while she looked over her brother's reports. If she was really lucky, she'd find nothing and her brother would never even know.

" _Sorry, working late. If you order pizza, leave me a slice_ ," she typed.

Sending the text to her nephew, she grabbed her bag from the passenger's seat and headed back toward her office.

* * *

"This is a terrible decision. Like a Derek Hale level of bad decision making," Stiles announced to the world. Yet, not a soul down the quiet neighborhood decided to stop him. He ran one hand over his head before continuing down the sidewalk to his Jeep. "But it's a decision I am making, apparently," he finished, hopping into the driver's seat.

He tossed his phone and a manila file in the passenger's seat and wished Scott was there to catch it. It just wasn't the same, doing something like this without him. Not that this choice, to visit a cemetery that reportedly lost some of its guests not too long back, was really in the same spectrum as waking up his best friend to search for half of a dead body. Well, maybe. Probably worse, he reasoned. This was probably worse, which was why it was good no one was there to stop him.

He'd stepped out of the shower, still certain he smelled like Ms. Rose's cat (a cat Jody had said Stiles wouldn't mind taking to the vet today), and noticed the message from his aunt. He'd blinked, surprised by the sudden opportunity to escape. The past few days had been non-stop chores for the elderly and one deputy's very pregnant wife, and his evenings had been taken up by Jody's insistence that they actually eat together and bonded by watching television together, like most red-blooded Americans. He'd reached the limits of what he could find out about Sean Mills from inside the house.

And this, the idea that somehow the cemetery that was vandalized the same week Sean was killed (murdered) was tied to the strange happenings that took place the night of his death, continued to haunt Stiles. His curiosity was an itch he couldn't quite scratch, and as his friends could attest, when he became obsessed with an idea, he had a hard time letting it go.

As he backed out the driveway, he noticed the purple horizon and groaned. He'd really hoped that when the opportunity to "escape" came knocking, it would be during daylight hours. Was that too much to ask?

The directions were easy enough to follow but getting turned around a few times bought him what little daylight had been left. By the time he found it, a waning moon hung in the sky and the rolling stretch of graves was invisible if not for the cut of his bright headlights. He killed the engine as soon as he realized he was parked at the right place, and then glanced around, looking for any sign that there was a caretaker at work.

Thankfully, there wasn't so much as a headlight in the distance. Not that he'd expect there to be since the county cemetery was off the beaten path, bordering a winding, lonely road. Stiles swallowed hard and slid out of the Jeep, not feeling particularly glad for his good fortune.

"Survival instinct. Need that," he muttered to himself.

A howl answered him and he flung himself back against his door, nearly jarring the life out of him. Resting a hand at his chest he twisted around, snatching his phone through the open window as "Bad Moon Rising" continued to play.

"Scotty, you're right. That was a terrible ringtone. I apologize for my poor taste," he answered, breathlessly.

Scott chuckled from the other end. " _Dude, that's what you get. You said you'd call tonight. Am I interrupting something?"_

"What?" Stiles sputtered "Why? Why would you think that?"

" _Uh, because you're whispering right now, and I'm pretty sure I can hear your heart racing from here in California."_

"I'm outside, and I don't want to wake the neighbors," Stiles answered. He definitely didn't want to wake any neighbors here. "Can I call you back?"

" _Why are you outside?"_

"Why wouldn't I be outside? I'm a grown man. I can go outside after daylight hours."

" _Stiles."_

"Scott."

" _Stiles, are you doing something dangerous?"_

"No," Stiles snapped, indignantly. "Technically, no. This is actually perfectly safe." Nevertheless, he gave the cemetery a wary glance and then slipped back into the Jeep, rolling up his window and locking the door. "So, Dad still bugging you?"

Scott sighed. _"No. Not after that extremely awkward lunch. I swear, I really thought he knew when he brought up Gerard…But Mom said something about seeing your dad on her shift yesterday, and Derek said he had a missed call from the sheriff's department. I mean, it might not be your dad, but-"_

Stiles' brow furrowed. "Wait. When did you talk to Derek?"

" _I didn't. I ran into Isaac."_

Stiles might not have been a werewolf with the ability to listen for racing heartbeats, but he'd known Scott long enough to hear the omission. "Ran into Isaac?"

" _Isaac might have run into me. On purpose. He says Derek didn't send him though."_

Stiles opened his mouth to remind Scott of how many lying liars were werewolf-shaped in Beacon Hills, realized where he was standing, and thought better of it since he was currently playing the role of lying liar. He let go of his slight grudge for the moment. "So, no word from Boyd and Erica?"

" _Not as far as I could tell. I tried to ask Isaac about them, but he seemed…I don't know. Hesitant. I think he was hiding something."_

Stiles filed that away for later. Despite the somewhat mixed feelings he had for the betas, he hoped Erica and Boyd had made it somewhere safer than Beacon Hills after Allison's dad had freed them from the other hunters.

"So if he wasn't there to talk about his pack, why did Isaac orchestrate a cute-meet with you?"

" _A what?"_ Scott asked. _"I don't know. He just said he could tell I was… I mean, I guess it's because I'm a lone wolf."_

Stiles frowned. Because Scott was alone. Because Scott was lonely. So much so that Isaac could tell. Stiles felt a twist in his gut.

"If I left now, I could be back there in twenty-four hours. I mean, I might need to pull some gas money from my bank account, but I can-"

" _Stiles, stop, no._ " Scott sighed. _"As much as I want you back in town, I think that would make this thing between you and your dad worse."_

Stiles jerked his head back against the seat angrily, peeved when there wasn't much of a headrest to aid in his dramatics.

"The lone wolf dies," he said, quietly.

" _I'm not alone_ ," Scott assured. " _And just because you're a few states away doesn't make you any less, you know, pack or whatever."_

"Look at you, using the jargon." Stiles forced a small grin onto his face. "Fine. Listen I need to go. Back inside. Promise. Talk later?"

He could hear the smile Scott was wearing. _"Yes. Good. Inside is good. 'Night, man."_

Stiles tossed the phone down beside him and gave the manila folder under it a long look before rolling his eyes. He could still go out there, look up the names, and if it had been pre-wolf-friend Stiles, he might have.

"I guess the graves aren't going anywhere," he reasoned, and turned the key to the Jeep.

Nothing happened. He twisted it again, listening. There was a slight click from somewhere under the hood.

"Come on, Roscoe, don't fail me now." He winced when the engine didn't so much as sputter. "Don't panic. Nothing a wrench can't fix," he assured himself.

After popping the hood and going through his usual ritual of hitting things with said-wrench, he kicked at the closest tire. "Of course! Of course now is when you refuse to start for me! I try to make a good decision to not search the creepy graveyard and what happens? I get stuck in the creepy graveyard."

He picked up his phone but only frowned at his reflection in its slick black surface. He couldn't call Jody. She'd want to know why he was in a cemetery in the first place. Then she'd tell his dad. Best case scenario, she'd think he was buying weed from shady graveyard dealers. Worse case, she'd realize he was investing his uncle's death. Yeah, _no_.

That only left him with the option of calling for a tow or a taxi, and considering he hadn't seen one of the latter in days…Tow truck. That reminded him of something. He'd thrown on a dirty pair of jeans in his haste to get out of the house. He patted down the right pocket, finding the business card there, and scrambled to dial the number.

" _Who the hell is it?"_ a voice barked.

Stiles raised a brow. He could hear another phone line ringing in the background. "Uh, I was calling about a tow?"

" _A tow? How'd you even get this number?"_

Stiles flicked the card with his middle finger, suddenly regretting his second poor decision of the evening. "It was on your business card. I mean, I know it says you're a salvage yard, but I thought maybe you could give my Jeep a tow somewhere. Like, anywhere, really?"

" _Bullshit. I haven't used business cards or been listed in the phone book in years. Now answer the first question."_

"If you're not in business, you could have just said so," Stiles said. "My aunt had your card, ok? Sorry for wasting your time."

" _Your aunt?_ " The voice cut him off. _"I gave an old card to Jody Mills not long back. Heard she had a boy staying with her now. That you?"_

Stiles grimaced. He had a feeling that keeping knowledge of his field trip from Jody was not going to be easy. "Yeah, this is Stiles. Stiles Stilinski."

" _Stiles, huh? Bobby Singer."_ The man cleared his throat. _"Where you at, kid?"_

"There's this old cemetery off of Snakesmith…"

" _You're shitting me?"_

"I shit you not, sir," Stiles chirped back. "I was, uh, pulled over, looking at something, and my Jeep wouldn't start."

" _Sure."_

Singer ended the call before Stiles could reply. "So that means you're coming, right?"

He stared at his phone a long minute before forcing himself to look at the dark wilderness outside. The moon's frail light was just bright enough to show a black treeline a few hundred yards into the distance. He imagined what could be in those trees, waiting for him to step back outside, and a chill ran over him.

Surely Singer wouldn't leave him out there. Not if he knew Aunt Jody, right? Stiles frowned at the thought. What if Singer knew her but didn't care for her? Stiles had assumed she had the man's card because he knew LEO were always using tow truck drivers to scrap salvage after accidents, but what if the guy had been a suspect or someone Jody had questioned about a suspect?

But what were the chances that she'd leave his card laying around, if he were someone dangerous? Stiles considered his luck of late and swallowed hard.

"Everything happens for a reason," he assured himself, "and sometimes that reason is because you're stupid and make bad choices…Scott is going to kill me if I die tonight."


	5. Chapter 5

If someone were to call Bobby Singer a paranoid old curmudgeon, he would have grunted out that he was an _alive_ paranoid old curmudgeon. So, when he received an unplanned call on the one phone line he barely used these days, knowing that most the locals in town who weren't in the know considered him a bit too heavy on the sauce to trust with a salvage tow, he was suspicious, to say the least. It didn't help that he was feeling particularly surly after slamming the phone down on a hunter who was abusing his fake FBI line too much today, or that the kid on the other end sounded like he was just past puberty.

He was a second from snapping at the guy when mention of an "aunt" with his card came up. Bobby rolled his eyes, certain that one day they were going to roll out of his head. He'd, lucky him, had precious few encounters with the only local official who was in-the-know about his side job, but he'd kept up with the gossip on the good sheriff. And, maybe he'd even pried a bit of info out of Jim at the hardware shop in her neighborhood, knowing the guy ran his mouth faster than he ran his cash register. Mention of Sheriff Mills' "troubled" nephew staying with her had come up.

"Your aunt?" Bobby groaned. That woman would have his head if he didn't at least stay on the line. "I gave an old card to Jody Mills not long back. Heard she had a boy staying with her now. That you?"

Bobby figured the pause was from surprise.

" _Yeah, this is Stiles. Stiles Stilinski."_

Jesus, Bobby thought, with a name like that, the boy's parents didn't even give him a chance, did they?

"Stiles, huh? Bobby Singer." He cleared his throat, considering looking the kid's name up while they chatted. Instead he reached across his table, fishing out the keys to his tow truck. He hadn't used it much of late, if he was honest, seeing as he'd been preoccupied with, oh, being in a wheelchair and the apocalypse. Still, he'd been giving it a bit of maintenance just earlier that day. Bills to pay and whatnot. She was gassed ready to roll already.

"Where you at, kid?"

" _There's this old cemetery off of Snakesmith…_ "

Because why wouldn't a teenage boy being at a cemetery at night? Bobby ran his fingers over his eyes and then slapped his trucker hat over his head. And here he'd thought Garth had the monopoly on stupid decisions for the day.

"You're shitting me?"

" _I shit you not, sir_. _I was, um, pulled over, looking at something, and my Jeep wouldn't start."_

Bobby swore if this was some sort of demon trick, he was going to kill that bastard to death. "Sure," he snapped. He slammed the land-line down and made sure his cell was on him, as well as a loaded weapon and a tin of holy water.

"Ah Hell," he muttered, realizing that he could need to call Jody Mills on his way. What a rotten day.

* * *

Watching the distant headlights from the tow truck, Stiles had been prepared to send a 911 text out the second things went sideways. Instead, he received a text in reply, as if his aunt had suddenly developed a psychic connection with him:

" _Singer just called me. You and I need to have a talk later."_

Stiles made a face at his phone. That was just great. His tow truck driver had already ratted him out. On the plus side, he highly doubted Bobby Singer was a violent criminal, based on that message.

Hearing the crunch of gravel as the truck pulled in beside him, he popped out of his Jeep and watched as the tow truck was backed up. It was still running when the driver's side door opened, figure hopping down and stomping toward the Jeep in a way that suggested this visit was of great annoyance. Stiles thought the scruffy old guy looked every bit like someone named Bobby Singer should in his dirty trucker hat (despite the fact it was night) and flannel over-shirt (despite the fact that it was still warm out).

Stiles opened his mouth to greet him, but was cut off.

"Pop the hood," a gruff voice ordered.

Stiles hesitated only a moment, deciding not to question the request, before he leaned into his vehicle to find the lever. When he straightened, Bobby was already bracing the hood of the Jeep and muttering what sounded like, "insufferable woman," at the engine.

"Actually, his name is Roscoe," Stiles corrected. At Bobby's baffled expression, he sheepishly cleared his throat. "Uh, the Jeep's name. Roscoe…never mind."

"Isn't that nice."

Stiles decided not to comment on the guy's use of sarcasm being a bit heavy-handed.

Bobby turned his attention back to the engine, swearing under his breath (or Stiles thought it was swearing, despite a bizarre must-be-a-redneck use of "Crisco" thrown in there) before he reached down to yank something free. A weathered strip of duct tape hung from the man's fingertips.

"What the hell is this mess?"

Stiles opened and closed his mouth. Before he could settle on a reasonable answer, Bobby pointed to a spot a few yards away. "Go," he said. "Stand there while I give 'Roscoe' a look."

 _Uh no. You can't make me. How about I don't. Hit the road Surly McSurlyson._

All were replies Stiles considered giving before he remembered this was someone Jody knew, and he'd probably already pissed her off tonight. He took a two deliberately large steps back away from the salvage yard owner and the Jeep, nearly slipping on the dew-wet grass. Which might have been embarrassing, even without the side-eye he was getting from Grumpy.

He didn't like that he wasn't in his Jeep, but it took him another second to realize the reason why had little do to with the guy under her hood. Reaching to rub the back of his neck, he twisted his head, glancing casually over his shoulder at the not-distant-enough treeline. There was no movement in the shadows, no indicator that there was so much as a squirrel scurrying along. Still, he was convinced something was watching them.

"This isn't Beacon Hills," he muttered to himself. It wasn't as calming a mantra as he'd hoped it would be. Stiles moved a bit closer to the towing truck, just to be on the safe side.

Bobby glanced up at Stiles, craning his head to look past him, at the cemetery, but he didn't say anything. Instead, he went to work, checking the Jeep over, going back to his own truck to look for this or that, despite the fact that the man insisted he was salvage only. Stiles wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but the guy seemed to keep one eye on him at all times, like he was afraid Stiles might suddenly decide to steal his tow truck or something. Though his constant check on his phone assured him that only ten minutes had passed, Stiles felt antsy.

Finally Bobby put the hood down, walking back toward his own truck to back it up further. "Starter's out," he said, over his shoulder. "As well as about a dozen other things. You can't take care of a vehicle, you shouldn't be driving one."

Stiles felt his cheeks flush. "Listen, dude. I don't know if I interrupted you while you were watching _Duck Dynasty_ or whatever, but I can find someone else to tow my Jeep."

Bobby paused in front of his door before reaching inside and pulling out a silver flask. Silently, he took a swig from it before tossing it in Stiles' direction. Stiles fumbled to catch it, realizing a second too late that the cap wasn't screwed on right. Liquid splashed over his hands. He instinctively wrinkled his nose in disgust before realizing he didn't smell any whiskey. If fact, it looked, and smelled, like normal water. He brushed his hand off on his jeans, glaring up at the older man.

Who looked sheepish as he shrugged an apology. There was something about the gesture that left Stiles certain the guy wasn't even a little sorry.

"Thought you might be thirsty," Bobby excused. "Hot out here. Get in the truck, and we'll get movin'. Ain't got all night."

Stiles realized the guy was pretending he hadn't heard the part about calling another tow truck. He huffed but stomped over to the passenger's side, hopping up onto the seat. He was trying, and failing, to ignore the weird vibe Bobby was giving off.

A moment later, the other man slid into his truck, and they moved, precious cargo attached behind them. Turned in his seat, Stiles anxiously watched the baby blue body bounce as they turned out of the barely existent cemetery driveway. At least, he reasoned, if anything was in the trees, it wasn't following them.

He was so caught up in watching Roscoe, it took him a moment longer to realize there was a shotgun strapped in a rack behind the truck's seat. Stiles turned back around, sitting a bit too straight, and reasoning with himself that the weird vibe from Bobby had nothing to do with the shotgun in plain sight. No sirree.

"Dangerous line of business?" Stiles finally asked.

Bobby grunted in reply, then took one hand off the steering wheel to scratch at his cap. His face twisted slightly, as if whatever he was trying to spit out was painful. "Been a long day of dealing with idgits."

"Was that an apology?" Stiles asked.

"Take what you can get," Bobby suggested, giving him a sideways glance. "I don't do much work these days that deals with people. Was…injured for a while. Long recovery. I wasn't expectin' a call from a customer."

Stiles nodded, somewhat surprised. In his experience, the grumpy ones usually weren't this chatty. "Sorry for being a pain in the ass."

Stiles half-expected to feel his dad bop him over the head for that one, despite being a few states away. Instead, Bobby huffed out a chuckle.

"Sorry for being a grumpy old bastard." Bobby's lip twitched with a smile. "Your aunt said you drove that hunk of metal from California."

"I'll have you know that Roscoe is a beautiful piece of machinery." Stiles was barely able to hold on to his offended tone before he deflated. "How much is the repair going to cost?"

"I run a salvage yard," Bobby reminded him. "I'm sure I can rustle you up enough parts to get her-sorry, 'him'-going strong, but you'll need a mechanic to put them in."

Stiles raised a brow. "You can't install a starter?"

"A monkey with a wrench can install a starter," Bobby snapped. "I'm not going to. Not my job." They drove in silence a moment, Roscoe lurching and creaking behind them, before Bobby drummed his fingers against the wheel. "Don't worry about the cost. Jody and I will figure it out."

"I'm not letting Jody pay for it," Stiles answered quickly. "She's already covering food and lodge, and she barely even knows me. I can take care of the cost. How much are the parts?"

"Not much. What do you mean 'she barely knows' you? She's your aunt."

Stiles shrugged one shoulder. "Our family isn't close."

Bobby hummed something in the affirmative. "That the first time you were visiting their graves then?"

Stiles blinked, confused for a moment, before he realized how easy an excuse that was. "Uh, yeah. My uncle and cousin are both there."

"Might I suggest you plan your next visit during daylight hours," Bobby said.

Stiles sunk a bit in his seat. "Probably a good idea," he noted. He perked up after a second, eyes narrowing. "Hey, how much do you know about that cemetery? I heard someone in town say that it was kind of creepy." A lie, but Stiles was used to giving them, and he was ninety percent sure he wasn't riding beside a werewolf who could read his heartbeat. "Like, they mentioned something about weird happenings. Maybe it's haunted."

"Nope," Bobby said, a bit too quickly. "Fairly certain it's not. Why, you interested in that kind of stuff?"

Stiles snorted. "No, of course not," he said, laying on the absurdity a bit heavy. "I mean, I just thought, it might be, like, a local hangout for bad elements or something. Not, you know, anything weird really. Just totally normal stuff. Which, is what I find interesting. The normal."

He finally managed to shut his mouth.

"And that made you want to go visit it at night?" Bobby asked.

From his tone, Stiles was sure the man was poking fun. He screwed up is face. "About that…did you mention where I was to Jody?"

"Oh, that's the least of your problems, kid," Bobby assured. "I might not know the good sheriff all that well, but I know her enough. You try passing off those piss poor lies with her, and you'll find yourself on the opposite end of an interrogate. That woman is downright irritating when she thinks she knows something."

Stiles might have imagined it, but he thought the old man sounded fond of that attribute. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said, trying for genuine.

Stiles didn't realize they were slowing until the truck pulled under the metal sign for Singer Salvage. The place was a mess, a zoo of automobiles in looming stacks and scattered at odd angles. Down the drive was the shadowy outline of a house and a separate garage. What caught his eye most, though, was the sheriff's vehicle parked in front of the porch, its owner leaning against the back, arms crossed over her chest as she watched them pull in.

Bobby came to a stop further down the drive and gave Stiles a glance that was almost pitying. "I won't do all the work. Got too much on my plate. But if you want to give me a hand, we can at least get that hunk of metal off my property this week."

Stiles' eyes widened. He grinned brightly. "You'll fix it?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "Don't make me regret this." From the sound of his voice, he already did. "Have the sheriff drop you off in the morning and prepare to work. Nothing's free, so I'll expect you to put in the labor, understand? I figure you can help me pull a few parts for an order or two, and we'll call it even. Shouldn't take a couple days."

"Yeah, yes, I can do that," Stiles replied. He tried to hold down his excitement. Fixing Roscoe, even with a grumpy old guy as company, sounded almost preferable to another day of cat-villa with Ms. Rose. "Thanks?"

Bobby looked uncomfortable but nodded his chin toward the passenger's window, where Jody was standing, not too far away, her face oddly blank. "Yeah, well. Would you get out before that woman gets in here with us?"

Stiles frowned, sliding out of the truck. "Honestly, I have no idea what she could be mad about," he muttered.

He could of sworn he heard Bobby laughing behind him.

* * *

Jody drove to the end of the driveway and stopped, waving once back at Bobby Singer, who glanced their way, shaking his head, before he headed into his house. If Stiles wanted to know why she didn't turn onto the main road, he didn't ask. Instead he moved, fidgeting in his seat, as if he couldn't find a comfortable spot as he tugged at his seatbelt, fingers opening and closing around the strap. It reminded her of Owen, after he'd had too much sugar.

"Have you eaten?" she asked.

Stiles scratched at his cheek, giving her a fleeting look of surprise before schooling his features. She could tell from his expression that he thought he might get out of answering questions. _Not a chance, kid._

"Uh, no. Actually I'm kind of hungry, now that you mention it. Famished really," he replied, straightening. "Which. You know. Famished, sounds a bit like famine, and I'm only just now realizing that those two are related, probably through the latin ' _fames_ ', I guess, though now I'm wondering if the…" He trailed off, and Jody wasn't sure what expression she was wearing, but the look on her face made his mouth snap closed. "I probably should have mentioned I was going out," he said.

"Text, e-mail, voice mail, note on the fridge," she agreed. She shook her head slightly, then sighed, deciding now was as good a time as any for a confession. "I did something I shouldn't have done, because your dad is an idiot."

Stiles opened his mouth, as if defend his father, and Jody raised a hand to cut him off.

"It's a family trait," she assured. She sucked on her bottom lip a moment longer before deciding to rip the band-aid off. "After Bobby called, I was planning to pretend I was angry with you, go all 'protective aunt', maybe ground you. Then say that was too extreme, and un-ground you after about fifteen minutes. I didn't plan to tell you what I was doing this evening."

Stiles raised a brow, slowly asking, "And what were you doing this evening?"

"Research." Jody considered keeping her mouth shut one last time. "When your dad called me and asked me if it would be okay for you to spend some time with me this summer, he wasn't exactly forthright with information. He told me you were in trouble. Told me about the night you were beaten up. But I could tell he was holding back. Honestly, I…I made the choice not to ask for more. Maybe because I felt a bit guilty, like I didn't deserve to know, because I wasn't a person in your life. Maybe because I was too caught up in the idea of you staying with me to go looking for reasons why you shouldn't."

Jody stole a glance at Stiles. His eyes were trained ahead, moonlight leaving them bright. She could see the movement in his throat as he swallowed hard.

His voice sounded hoarse. "Not really much to know."

"I think there is, Stiles. I think Noah should have told me how much you saw in the station, when those deputies were murdered. I think he should have mentioned finding the dead mechanic. I think he should have given me some idea of what was really going on with you."

"I didn't-"

"And the janitor, at your school," she continued. "Seeing that much death…I know what that does to a person. I know it leaves you more alert and more numb than you've ever been before. I know you don't just get over it. You keep going, but it catches up with you eventually."

She could see it on the tip of his tongue, the unspoken 'you don't know anything.' But instead of saying it, he frowned, and she knew that next look was one of guilt. Jody winced, certain that he'd suddenly remembered who she was, who she'd loss. He wasn't there when it happened, but he knew, from his own experience, what it felt like. Jody was almost proud he had the state of mind not to hurt her by questioning her own grief.

"I don't want to talk about this," he said, after a long minute.

"Ok." Jody gifted him with a crooked grin, forcing him to meet her eye. "You don't have to talk. And I'm not going to look into it anymore. No more solving the mystery of Stiles Stilinski."

There it was again, that guilt in his eyes, but, she reasoned, probably there for a different reason. Jody knew she wasn't imagining it, and she was almost certain it meant that something was still going on with Stiles. Something he was purposely hiding from her.

"You're a lot like your dad," she said, examining him.

"An idiot?"

Jody snorted, not disagreeing. "So, if Noah didn't tell me about you, I'm guessing he didn't tell you all that much about me. Am I right?"

"I know about your family. Owen and Sean."

Jody tried to hide the way the names cut into her. If she thought about them too hard, if she thought about how only a few short months ago, Sean had been a living, breathing part of her world. About how for a fraction of a moment, she'd thought they'd have their baby boy back, right before fate slapped her across the face. If she thought about that, she'd lose it, and she'd promised herself, and her memory of them, that she'd stay sane. So, she tried not to show Stiles how much the casual mention hurt.

"That's not…" She cleared her throat, the sound more needy that she'd intended, and started over. "I mean Noah and me, our parents. How we grew up."

"Grandpa's a dick," Stiles supplied.

Maybe that was all he knew about the situation, but it was a nice summary, Jody thought. She huffed out a broken laugh, pretending that he wouldn't notice that it sounded a bit like a sob.

"Aside from that?" Jody asked. At Stiles' frown, she nodded to herself. "At the risk of revealing my age, Noah and I are seven years apart. When you're an adult, seven years is nothing. When you're a kid, it's eternity. Noah was nineteen when Mom passed, and you weren't exactly wrong about Dad. Our parents had been separated for a while, so I didn't think of him as an option, and Noah had always promised me, even before Mom's accident, that we'd never have to stay with that man again. So, me, I thought the answer was obvious after Mom. I thought my big brother would be taking care of me, like he'd always done."

Jody shifted in her seat, facing the front. Out here at Bobby's place, city lights were far away and the sky was huge through the windshield. She hoped Stiles was still staring at the sky and not her.

"We had a great aunt out here. A nice enough woman, but we were never really close. I never let myself be close to her. I spent way too many years bitter. It's hard to flip that switch, even when you're no longer a kid, and you can see the big picture. Noah tried to visit, but I made it difficult for him. I thought that if he didn't want me around all the time, then I didn't want him around at all. Stupid is genetic, right? Even after I was grown and realized that Noah had made the right decision, I had a hard time turning that part of me off." Jody took a shaky breath. "You get how complicated it can be, right? To try and fix something like us?"

"You don't have to fix anything," Stiles said, quietly. "You just…"

Whatever he was going to say was left hanging. She smiled to herself. It wasn't easy to put into words, but she'd heard him. And maybe if she could hear what he wanted to say, he could hear her just as easily. With a little work, he might even open up, tell her what she couldn't read in Noah's reports, before it caught up with him, because as much as she wanted to believe that Stiles' involvement in that many bizarre cases was coincidence, she honestly didn't.

Shifting the car into gear, they rolled out onto the road.

"Text me next time," she said. An order. "I can't believe you called Bobby Singer before me," she muttered. "I'm the sheriff, in case you forgot."

"Yes, ma'am. And while we're de-railing the conversation, can we move back to the subject of food?"

Jody huffed out a chuckle, heading home.


	6. Chapter 6

Jody knew. Something. Stiles wasn't sure what "something" was, but he was certain she knew it.

By nine-thirty the next morning, he was almost willing to confess all knowledge of werewolves to her just to get an excuse to go back on his word to help Bobby Singer. The sun scorching overhead would have been painful enough without the graveyard of metal carcasses sizzling beneath, reflecting white light. He squinted when he glanced up from under the hood of an old Ford truck, hissing in pain as he accidentally touched the side panel with his forearm. There was flesh missing, he was certain.

"Are you sure this thing even comes off?" he asked, pointing his wrench down at the engine. Or, at least a small part that Bobby told him to pull out of a section he'd assumed was part of the engine. Stiles wasn't even sure what it was, but the man had taken one out of a nearby vehicle in about two minutes. Stiles was hitting twenty.

Which was a reflection of his whole _long_ morning so far, with Bobby barking out a random factoid about a vehicle and expecting Stiles to know one tool from another. To the old guy's credit, he hadn't lost his patience yet, despite his rough mannerisms. Stiles was beginning to suspect the ass-hole thing was a front, with Bobby's true squishy-ness showing when he did things like force him to drink a bottle of orange juice or wear a greasy second-hand ball-cap to keep the sun out of his eyes. A greasy ball-cap he currently regretted abandoning.

Stiles grimaced when he looked back down and found something oozing out of his current "project".

"Uh, Bobby? Is this supposed to leak pink goo?"

His only reply was a muttering of what he was sure was foul language as the man retreated back toward the house. "And don't strip it this time," was the only words actually audible before the back door slammed, Bobby vanishing inside. Stiles almost shouted after him when he realized the faint sound in the background was a ringing phone, a ground line, he wagered, since Bobby had kept a cell in his pocket.

"That's fine, just leave me out here while you chat with a telemarketer in your air conditioned house," Stiles said, not even a little bitter. He swiped a blanket of sweat off his forehead with the back side of his arm, only afterward realizing he was smearing grease onto his face. "That's great," he snapped, balancing the wrench as he reached out for the oil rag. "Wonderful. I'm having a fantastic summer learning to build cat houses and strip cars. Can't wait to tell all my friends-"

A _thud_ cut him off. After a second of blinding pain, he realized the sound was his head hitting the heavy edge of the truck's hood. He blinked, the world spinning a moment.

"That was…graceful," he muttered.

"What the Hell?" Bobby snapped. "I left you alone for two minutes!"

Stiles wasn't expecting the rough hands that grabbed him by his shoulders, and he nearly tripped over his own feet. He opened his mouth to complain (and also comment on the fact that, for an old guy, Bobby was fast) but closed it again when he realized Bobby was staring at him wide-eyed, practically clucking like an old hen.

"Damn that woman," Bobby hissed and yanked Stiles' chin downward. "She's going to have my ass. And damn that fool Garth too for distracting me."

The slick feeling at his scalp suddenly made sense, and he grimaced. "How bad is it?" he asked. "Also, who is Garth?"

"You'll live. And none of your business," Bobby answered. He chewed his cheek, surveying the damage before making a sour face, as if he was already regretting his next comment. "Come on in, and let me get you cleaned up."

Stiles snorted at him. "Bet you have great bedside manner."

"Just try not to trip over the steps and break an arm," Bobby replied.

Stiles recovered quickly when he almost did just that. He stumbled in behind Bobby, trying to resist the urge to reach up with his dirty fingers and prod the wound, and he wasn't entirely surprised by the air of disarray inside the home. He was sure that at some point the house had probably not been a cluttered mess, but at the moment it looked entirely like he'd expect his dad's house to look if he wasn't stuck trying to be a good example for his teenage son (the man had never owned a newspaper or magazine he wanted to part with).

"Sit," Bobby barked.

"Such a gracious host," Stiles commented, but obeyed, finding a cleared spot on a sofa as Bobby opened one of the double doors dividing up the main room and disappeared.

All in all, the living room wasn't exactly as "dirty", other than the groupings of whiskey bottles, as Stiles had expected it to be, but Bobby must have been a collector of odds and ends. And books. Mostly books, actually. There were piles of books here and there, stacked precariously on cardboard car parts boxes, propped open by other books and jammed into any available shelf. Also the area rug looked crooked for some reason, with something painted on the slick floorboards below peaking out. Probably a renovation job that would never be finished.

This was not what he was expecting from a guy with that much motor oil under his nails, which was judge-y, he knew, but Bobby seemed to be purposely projecting a certain image that in no way hinted at hobbyist librarian.

Stiles tried for all of three seconds not to snoop, but he couldn't help but crane his neck to see past the open door frame. He raised a brow, surprised to note at least three phones on the wall by a cluttered table inside the next room, with a cell phone holding down a stack of newspaper clippings. Most people didn't even bother with a ground line, much less multiple ground lines. Surely they weren't all functioning?

"Stage One Hoarder then," Stiles whispered to himself, but he couldn't convince himself that the casual assessment was accurate.

Before he could get a better look, Bobby appeared around the corner, sliding the door shut behind him. He was carrying a rather large first aid kit, which he plopped down on the table beside Stiles.

"You always this accident prone?" Bobby asked.

"It's an art." Stiles tried not to fidget in his seat. He wasn't sure why, but it felt awkward to be in a stranger's house. Specifically this stranger's house. It didn't look like a place that welcomed visitors. "Kinda got a library vibe going on here. Would not have taken you for the intellectual type, what with the whole…Anyway. What do you read?"

Stiles was certain Bobby purposely chose that moment to apply a liberal amount of rubbing alcohol to his wound. With a yelp, Stiles jumped back into the seat cushions.

"Harlequin romance," Bobby snapped. "Now hold still."

Stiles tried. He did. His distracted himself by glancing back at the shelves of books.

"Those are some antique looking romance novels. Special hardback leather edition? In Latin?" he joked. "But seriously, do you collect rare books or something? Like as a side business?" He trailed off, noticing a shovel propped against the hall wall, a dented gas can sitting next to it, as if the items had been hastily discarded. Weird.

He barely noticed it when Bobby peeled a butterfly stitch bandage onto his forehead. The older man grunted an affirmation.

"There. That should keep you in one piece. Now head on out. I'll be there in a minute to show you what you're doin' wrong," Bobby assured. When the phone in the kitchen began to ring again, he rolled his eyes, looking put-out. "I swear, I'm too busy for that knucklehead."

"Want me to answer for you? Pretend you're stuck on the toilet with food poisoning?" Stiles offered.

Bobby blinked at him. "What? No. Get on out. I've got business."

Stiles opened his mouth to mention that he needed to use the restroom but changed his mind when Bobby shooed him toward the door. He moved quickly, eyes down cast, but as soon as Bobby had his back turned, Stiles doubled back a few steps and glanced into the kitchen. He caught a peek of the phones again as Bobby lumbered toward one, aggravation in every step. The one ringing had a piece of tape on it labeled "FBI".

 _What the hell even?_ Stiles' narrowed his gaze, slipping back outside before Bobby literally kicked him out, but he could see the man through the window blinds, barking something into the phone while flipping through a tome that would put a chemistry text book to shame.

Extra weird. At least for a normal person. Stiles had a feeling Bobby was anything but normal, though.

* * *

" _Noah, I think you need to take a step back."_

He ran a hand down his face, fingers swiping over his eyes to pinch the bridge of his nose. It did little to wipe away the weariness clinging to his mind, so he reached out blindly, finding his coffee cup balanced on his dash. The cruiser's interior was stifling, even though he'd only just killed the engine, but somehow his coffee had chilled. He drank deeply nevertheless.

" _You're too close_ ," Jody continued, when he didn't reply. Her voice sounded hollow over the speaker phone, accusing. _"Take a step back and look. Look at your son, Noah. Is this really what he needs? This case you're working on isn't going to help him."_

He regretted it already, telling her what he was up to while Stiles away, but it had been his only choice when she'd called, chewing him out over not filling her in on Stiles' history. He should have known it would take her less than a week to nose her way into the cases Stiles had been a part of. He wondered what she'd said to Stiles, if his son had opened up, talked to her about any of it. She wouldn't give him a straight answer if he asked, he was certain. His son was good at imbuing a sense of loyalty in those around him, which was one of the reasons he felt like such a traitor.

Would his kid speak to him when he realized he was talking to Scott behind his back? Noah had even tried following Scott. He'd seen the kid meet up with the Lahey boy, which seemed odd, but the teens had shaken him quickly, and he couldn't help but feel he'd been made in the process. If so, t was only a matter of time before Scott mentioned it to Stiles.

He could look forward to a good chewing-out from his son to follow up the one he'd already received from his sister. Lovely.

Somehow, though, what he was doing right now felt even more invasive than following Scott. Maybe that was because he was digging even deeper.

"What about what I need?" he finally spat out. He swallowed it down, but he couldn't help himself. The words bubbled back out. "You know I love my son, Jody, I do, but this is driving me nuts. I need answers, and I'll get them, one way or another."

" _I believe you,_ " Jody said, sounding sober. _"But I think your son will give them to you, if you give him time. Why won't you give him time? What's with the urgency?"_

"I don't want to wait, Jody." He shook his head. "I want my kid back. You understand that? I want him back, and even if he's here, he's not really with me. I miss what I had with my kid. We were just getting better."

" _Yeah."_ Jody cleared her throat. " _Yeah, I understand._ "

"I'm sorry."

" _It's okay._ "

"It's not," Noah snapped, frustrated with himself. "It's not. After Claudia, I wasn't great to be around. I was a terrible brother to you, and I drank, Jody. I know I swore to never be like Dad, but I was close. I was on the edge. I came back…I came back down after I found out about Owen. I didn't do everything right, but I did that one thing. Stiles didn't have to see much of that part of me, the part that could be like Dad, but it still took a while for us to be okay again. We were finally in a good place, and this constant lying started up…I need to get back there, to where we were."

" _Then take a weekend. Take a few days. I'll buy your plane ticket. Get here and come see him. Or we can come to you, your call. Your kid is still alive. His needs come before yours."_

Noah could hear it, the slight tremble to her voice, the forced sternness, and he knew he'd hurt her, somehow. That's how their relationship seemed to work. He winced, feeling the sting behind his eyes.

"I've got to get back to work. I'll talk to you later." He swallowed hard. "I love you."

" _Noah."_

He reached down, ending the call before she could say more.

The tap on his window startled him. His hand nearly at his weapon before his thoughts caught up to him. For a moment he'd forgotten where he was, why he was there. It took another second for him to realize who was standing outside his door. Derek Hale took a few steps back, giving Noah space to open the door and step out. They were silent a moment, and Noah opened his mouth to fill the void with an excuse. Before he could, Derek shifted the bag of groceries under his arm and sighed in annoyance.

"Why are you following me, Sheriff?"

* * *

By the third morning of salvage work, Stiles had come to his own conclusions. Mainly that Bobby Singer was a junk yard owning curmudgeon with a deep love of trucker hats. And that he was also a hunter.

Sketchy? Check. Weapon-lover? Based on the ammo and knives spotted on a trip to the bathroom, CHECK. Bizarre old books in multiple languages depicting supernatural creatures? Check. Check. Check. Honestly, the guy was terrible at hiding it, but Stiles figured most normal people would come up with reasonable reasons why those things would be laying around. Because who expects actual supernatural creatures to be an issue? People who have encountered werewolves and kanimas, that's who.

And Stiles was about eighty-nine percent sure that Bobby didn't actually run a side-business selling occult books, despite giving a particularly sassy reply about being a _Harry Potter_ enthusiast when asked. So, hunter. A vaguely terrifying conclusion considering Stiles' past with those types.

Which was why his heart was currently threatening to beat out of his chest. Granted, he probably would have been in a more literal state of distress if he was actually on the receiving end of Bobby's shotgun instead of staring at the man pointing the weapon thanks to a totaled-out van's side mirror.

 _Objects may be closer than they appear;_ the words kept pulling his thoughts away from the situation at hand. He'd been attempting to remove the seat out of a van when he'd heard a customer pulling into the salvage yard. Normal, right? Only, a few seconds later he heard the muffled voices of two men and made the mistake of looking up at the mirror.

He tore his gaze away from the reflection long enough to spin around, hiding half his body against the van as he watched Bobby lower his weapon slightly, its shortened barrel pointed at the gravel. The other man was standing by his truck, scratching at his mustache in thought. He shook his head and said something to Bobby. Stiles was too far to hear the conversation, but he leaned out into the open, hoping to catch a few words.

"Damn my lack of supernatural hearing," he muttered, tasting a bead of sweat as it rolled over his upper lip.

The stranger must have caught the movement in the corner of his eye, because he stiffened, glancing Stiles' way. He waved his arm out at Stiles, head jerking as he told Bobby something, but the older man just jerked his chin toward the truck, sweeping his weapon in its direction.

Stiles could almost hear Bobby telling the guy to, "Get the hell off his property."

The stranger disappeared into his truck a moment later, peeling out of the driveway, and Stiles couldn't help but feel a bit relieved. It was short lived when he realized that still left him with probably-a-hunter and his weapon. Which, did that make the other guy something supernatural? Stiles swallowed hard, hoping to keep down any questions that might give him, and what he knew, away. He had a feeling hunters didn't like it very much when they were outed.

Bobby finally looked his way, raising a hand to wave him back toward the house.

"Sure, because I didn't almost just witness a murder," Stiles replied, knowing the man couldn't hear him. He jogged up to Bobby, eyes on the shotgun. "That guy owe you money or something?" he said, hoping it came out like a joke.

Bobby looked like he had a lemon in his mouth. "Or somethin'." After what appeared to be an internal struggle, the man huffed out breath. "Idiot was lookin' for work, but he's got a bad rep. Don't want his kind around."

Stiles forced out a chuckle. "Because you already have one idiot working for you?"

Bobby grunted to himself, then dug into his pocket for a few folded bills clipped to a scrap of paper. "I need you to make a run to the hardware store. You remember passing Greene's on the way over? Just hand the guy at the register your list. I need to stock up on some things, and my day just got a bit busier. Take the Chevelle. Keys are inside."

Stiles stared at him, confused. "You want me to take your car?"

"Did I stutter?"

Stiles took the cash. "God didn't skimp on the sass and whiskey when he made you, did he?"

"Little light-handed on the patience though, jackass," Bobby snapped back, then spun around, muttering to himself as he marched into his house. He slammed the front door.

"So you want me away from your house while you do terrifying hunter things. Great."

Stiles realized he was talking to empty air and walked to the Chevelle. With a decent paint job, the old Chevy would have been a nice car, but for some reason it looked like it had never made it past a touch of primer over its rust. He opened the door and was slapped in the face with a wave of heat and odor.

"I don't want to know why it smells like roadkill in here. I really don't."

* * *

"Nice place you have here, Hale," Noah said, surveying the loft. He supposed he should have been satisfied the young man was nice enough to let following him up into the building, instead of leaving him behind, but he couldn't help but feel like Derek wasn't interested in chatting.

"You say that like someone who didn't spend several hours this morning watching it from the street," Derek said, putting his groceries down on the counter.

Noah expected the man to make small talk, ask him to take a seat, offer a drink. He remembered, very vaguely, meeting Talia Hale long ago, and she'd been a polite, if oddly imposing, woman. It must not have rubbed off on her son. Derek stepped back into the main part of the room, arms loose at his sides, but somehow, he managed to block off the rest of the loft with his presence alone. Noah had the sense that he'd been invited this far just to force him into Derek's territory.

"You said you wanted to talk to me about Gerard Argent," Derek started.

"And Stiles," Noah added.

"Why do you think I know anything about your son?"

Noah raised a brow. "Implying you do know something about Gerard Argent?"

"Other than the fact that his daughter murdered my family?"

Noah couldn't meet the young man's eyes. He nodded slightly. "Other than that," he said, quietly. "Look, kid, I'm not here to tear open any old wounds, but I need answers, and I think you have them. I've been digging, and it seems Gerard Argent has disappeared. His family claims he's on a trip out of the country. Mind you, they weren't very eager to speak to me. Know anything about that?"

"Should I?"

And the question was almost earnest enough to be genuine. Noah frowned at him, and decided to cut to the chase. "Gerard hurt my son. I want to know why. I want to know how Stiles got mixed up with that family."

He was expecting a reaction, something he could read on the young man's face. Shock. Surprise. Worry. What he received was a shake of the head. "Sheriff, I don't know what you want me to tell you. I don't know much about your son, other than the fact that he and his friend tried to get me arrested for something I didn't do. A couple times."

Noah's cheek twitched. He smiled humorlessly. "Almost seems like you'd have a better motive for beating up my kid than an old man who, on paper, barely knew he existed, doesn't it?"

Derek only crossed his arms over his chest in reply.

"I don't know that you're connected, Hale." It felt strange, being honest, but it was currently Noah's only move. "I'm not here investigating you, understood? But my gut tells me maybe you know something about the Argents that other people don't. If I was in your position, if I'd lost my family like that, and I found out who'd done it, I'd want to know about them. I'd-"

"Kate was crazy," Derek interrupted. His jaw tightened, the only sign of anger on his face. "Gerard is worse," he added, surprising Noah. "I think Kate took after her father."

Noah blinked at his processed that observation. How did Derek know what he knew? "Did Gerard Argent threaten you in some way?"

Derek flashed a bitter grin in his direction. "Something like that."

"Why didn't you file a report? Hell, why didn't you say something?" Noah asked. At Derek's silence, Noah sighed. "What did he do exactly?"

"We're not talking about it," Derek said. "And if you want to know anything else, you need to talk to Stiles."

"Because you don't want to talk about it behind his back, or because Stiles is a better liar than you?" Noah snapped.

Derek smiled again, this time more softly, and he tilted his head, studying Noah. "You know, your son must take after you."

"Funny, that's what Scott said."

"Easy connection," Derek agreed. "Stiles thinks he can protect everyone while playing detective too. Sometimes it's not that simple."

Noah's mouth hung open, but he couldn't manage a reply right away. Derek gave him a moment, letting the silence between them drag on until Noah forced himself past the fact that the young man had just spoken as if he actually knew Stiles rather well. How the hell that would have happened, he wasn't sure, but Derek had all but confessed it. Noah couldn't piece together why he'd given him that much, but it felt like Derek knew exactly what he was doing.

"Is that what happened?" Noah asked, his voice hoarse. "My son, and Scott, did they find out Gerard had it out for you and try to stop him or something? Why would they have done that?"

To anyone else, it might have sounded crazy, but Noah knew his son, knew how fixated he could become. When he and Scott accused Derek of murder, when they were proved wrong, Stiles would have obsessed over it. Gotten involved. He would have spoken to Derek Hale. He would have looked into the Argents when the news about Kate came out…Noah felt cold. Had his son really been investigating that family without him ever knowing?

Derek didn't answer at first. Finally he shrugged one shoulder indecisively. "Or something," he said quietly.

"You didn't try to stop them?" Noah snapped. "They're teenagers! If that man's as delusional as his daughter, he could have killed my son thinking he was part of one of his fantasies! Why didn't you say something? Why didn't you-"

"Protect him?" Derek interrupted, looking away. There was a flash of light in his eyes, a reddish glow reflecting from the loft's window. "If I was a psychologist I'd say you were projecting your anger, Sheriff."


	7. Chapter 7

**AN:** Warning for violence and threatening language toward a teenager. Show level violence, but still, could be very unpleasant for people who suffer from abuse triggers, so I thought I should post a warning.

* * *

The thud of rubber repeatedly hitting blacktop seemed to drown out the other sounds of the day, but Stiles couldn't stop tapping his foot against the sidewalk where he sat, perched on the curb, wearing a hole in the side of his sneaker. The Chevelle was at arms length, its trunk open just a crack, the way he'd left it before deciding he really, really wanted to sit down. That eleven percent of doubt that Bobby was a hunter? It was gone the moment he'd carried the rather heavy cardboard box from the hardware store to the car and made the unfortunate decision to put it in the trunk instead of the backseat.

He'd snapped a picture of the symbol drawn inside the trunk, and he was certain he'd seen it before when he'd gone on one of his supernatural-werewolf-knowledge binges on the internet. That? That was the kind of symbol the sex-drunk teenagers in horror films saw in the haunted house before they were brutally murdered. And it really didn't help that the strange scent of decay was coming from back there. Those brown stains? He was pretty sure that was old blood. And even though there were still a few tools, a water jug, and a bag of rock salt stowed back there, Stiles could just make out the indentation of heavier items. Things Bobby had probably taken out.

"Like weapons and dead bodies," Stiles muttered. He thought of Peter's nurse, rotting in her own trunk and nearly vomited.

His cell phone felt sweaty and warm between his hands. He flipped it over a few more times, considering his options, but they weren't great. Instinct told him to call Scott, but that would just lead to panic, and, frankly, the last thing he wanted to do was chance his wolf-bud coming to see him while he was running errands for a hunter.

Which, hey, now that he thought about it, he'd just slid another piece of the puzzle that was Sean Mills' death into place. Whatever had killed his uncle and the other locals had probably been taken out by the (un)friendly neighborhood hunter. Check that off the list, he thought.

That was another thing he was going to have to tell Scott about. Eventually. When it wouldn't lead to his best friend getting himself shot.

"This is a stupid idea," he warned his hands, but they were already at work, pressing a number he hadn't planned on using again, quite frankly. As the phone buzzed against his ear, he told himself this wasn't a betrayal, that Scott would understand, but he didn't look forward to telling his best bro about this call.

" _Stiles?"_

She sounded shocked, like she was feeling genuine emotions that weren't homicidal, and it threw Stiles for a loop, because he hadn't been sure she'd even answer the phone.

"Allison. Hey."

" _Is…What's wrong?"_

Stiles could hear it missing between the words. She wanted to ask about Scott. She thought Stiles was calling because something bad had happened to Scott. He rolled his eyes. This had been a mistake, but it was already made.

"Everything's fine," he assured her. A mostly true statement. He resisted the urge to point out that she didn't really seem as interested in their safety the last time they were all together. "Um, so, safe travels and all?" He reached up, sliding his hand down his face. Way to sound casual. "I mean, did your move go well?"

" _Stiles, I don't mean this in a rude way, but why are you calling?"_

"Can't a guy just call to check up on his best friend's ex without an interrogation? Also, I wanted to ask you a question." Stiles was expecting a reply. When one didn't arrive, he sighed to himself. "So, how much information do you have on hunters outside your family? I mean, are there, like, freelancers who work alone or do you have to be part of a hunting family to organize-"

" _Hunters? Stiles, what's going on? Are there hunters in Beacon Hills?"_

"Beacon Hills is fine. And by Beacon Hills, I mean Scott. Scott's fine. Or I hope he's fine. He's been sort of evasive the last few times we talked, and I'm not actually home to keep an eye on him. Worrisome, I know."

" _What do you mean you're not home?"_

"Dad realized I was lying about, well, everything, so he sent me live with a relative in South Dakota until I fess up."

Stiles bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from mentioning the incident that pushed his dad over the edge, the bruises he'd lied about. He still wasn't sure how much Allison knew about Gerard's plans for that night, and it had been Chris Argent he'd spoken to, however briefly, Chris who'd assured him the Betas would make it out of the basement. He didn't want to know if Allison had known what her grandfather was doing, if she'd told Gerard that Stiles would make a good message for Scott. He didn't want to ask and risk hearing something he'd rather not.

" _I'm…"_ The sound of movement echoed from the other end as she shifted the phone. _"I'm sorry."_

"Bobby Singer," Stiles said, abruptly cutting off his own thoughts. "Ever heard of him?"

" _Bobby Singer?"_ she repeated back. _"No I don't think so. Hold on."_

Stiles raised a brow when he heard another voice in the background, the subtle shift in their muffled voices as the speaker phone was activated.

" _Stiles, stay away from Bobby Singer, do you understand me?"_

Stiles was thrown by the worried note in Chris Argent's voice. "Uh, hey, Mr. Argent. How's the gun business?"

" _This isn't a game."_

" _Dad, what's going on?"_

Stiles huffed out a breath, amused. "No kidding. You know Bobby?"

" _I know you have your reasons not to trust us,_ " Chris said, " _but I think we can agree that the further you stay away from this world, the better."_

Stiles glanced up at the trunk of the Chevelle. "Not always an option. And I think I'm already pretty deeply involved, don't you? I mean, your dad seemed to think so. Or does he go around abducting normal teenagers too, because he seemed to have a knack for it?"

" _It's not safe for you to be looking into hunters, Stiles."_

"Is Bobby dangerous?"

Chris hesitated before answering. _"I don't know Mr. Singer very well. I know a few hunters who have traded information with him in the past. He seems to be a good man, but he keeps dangerous company. There are rumors about the kinds of hunters he works with…You don't want to be mixed up with them, and you certainly don't want them to know you're involved with a pack of werewolves. The best thing you can do to keep your friends and family safe is to stay away from people like him."_

Of course he'd throw in the friends and family card, Stiles thought, rolling his eyes. "That might be difficult, seeing as I'm driving his car."

" _Stiles!"_ Allison snapped.

"He doesn't know anything! And as far as he knows, I don't know anything. He's just fixing my Jeep. I just wanted to know if I was aiding a serial killer, because that's illegal in most states. But according to you he's an okay guy who won't kill me as long as I don't grow extra hair on a full moon. Thanks for the info, guys. Keep in touch." He ended the call before he could tell which of the Argents had been about to shout at him. "Or don't," he added, as an afterthought, "since I already have enough hunters to worry about, apparently."

Stiles felt the presence at his back a second before he heard the man's voice.

"No kidding."

Stiles jerked in surprise, nearly at his feet when a boot hit the back of his knee, knocking him onto the blacktop. Before he could note more than an ugly porn-stache on his attacker, something prodded into his shoulder blade, sending a burning jolt of pain through his body that left him seeing white. His body felt like one giant muscle cramp before the pain was suddenly gone, a heavy weight on his spine in its place, knocking the breath out of his lungs before he could scream. It was the man's knee, he realized, pinning him down as his wrists were pressed together behind him. The plastic cuffs bit against his skin as a hand wrapped around his neck, forcing him back up to his feet and toward the trunk of the Chevelle.

"Inside," the man snapped. Another tap from the taser, and Stiles stumbled forward toward the car. The trunk had been knocked open, a black maul, ready to swallow him whole.

"Don't do this," Stiles begged, his teeth gritted. He hated that he sounded afraid.

He wanted to sound witty, a jackass, as Bobby had labeled him. But he wanted desperately more to see his aunt driving by in a cruiser. Despite that it was a sunny mid-morning, there was no one there. He'd consciously parked on the lonely side street beside the store, hoping for some privacy as he had a conversation about the things that go bump. His decision making, he noted, wasn't getting any better in the daylight hours.

"Stiles Stilinski" the man growled, chuckling against the back of Stiles' neck, "your hunter problems are about to get a lot worse."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious," he snapped back. He felt a bit better about the retort, right before the taser hit his flank and he rolled forward into a metal monster that smelled like death.

* * *

"No, actually, I don't have a Targeryan crystal shard anointed in a priestess' blood, and I don't have time to call every antique dealer in the heartland to find you one, asshat! But thanks _so_ much for your time. You been a real help."

Bobby slumped forward in his chair, ending the call while the other hunter was still rattling off in his ear. He'd heard what he needed to hear, which was a fat lot of nothing.

Maybe he was a bit heavy-handed in the sarcasm these days. Bobby scowled at the thought. As much as it was exactly like him to hang up on people, he usually paid a bit more attention to what the hunters in his circle were saying. At the moment, though, he was too preoccupied with his own problems, or potential problems, to deal with someone wanting to use him a crutch. That problem, of course, being the hunter who'd shown up at his doorstep as if he'd been invited over for brunch, when Bobby had told the guy over the phone not two days ago to piss off. It had set Bobby on edge, the guy thinking he'd get tossed a "job" if he just popped in, as if Bobby was the damned supernatural classifieds section.

Bobby was apt to know why the man was so desperate, hence the hunters he was trying to get in touch with. One of them might know enough to fill in the blanks.

It wasn't that Bobby knew this Mitchell enough to have anything personal against him, but he didn't like guys who'd gotten used to getting an allowance from wealthy hunting families. That sort tended to act more like mercenaries than hunters. Bobby felt bad that the guy had lost his contacts, sure, but Hell, he wasn't going to babysit some hunter he didn't even know if he could trust. He had enough babysitting going on it as it was.

He rolled his eyes when he caught the time on the phone. That blame kid had been gone nearly an hour. Bobby kind of hoped he'd stay gone a bit longer, too. Considering it, he sent the kid a text message, "Pick up lunch somewhere cheap. I'll pay, ya broke ass." He huffed out a chuckle that he'd never admit to, imagining Stiles' outrage at being ordered around. Bobby had a feeling he'd be getting a receipt for steak today. Kid was a hoot, if quick to get on one's last nerve. Not that Bobby would admit to that either.

"I did tell that kid to stay out of the trunk, didn't I?" Bobby muttered to himself. He couldn't remember if he'd cleaned the old girl out after his last hunt. Not that it mattered much anymore. Scaring the kid off might be the right move.

Bobby had figured he could drill in a few more lessons on car maintenance before showing the boy how to fix his "precious" Jeep. He wasn't sure why he was bothering, other than to assure that Sheriff Mills would take it easier on him next time he called in a favor. Now, though, he was considering ending those lessons early. He hadn't liked the way Mitchell had looked at Stiles, and Bobby would be the first to admit that some hunters were as dangerous to humans as they were to monsters. It wasn't safe to have a civilian around all the time.

The ringing of his phone pulled him from this thoughts, and he answered with a curt, "Singer."

" _Bobby Singer? My name is Chris Argent. We don't know each other, but we're in the same line of work. I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time."_

"Well, speak of the devil," Bobby muttered. Clearing his throat, he started over. "I know who you are. I was actually just looking for contact info on your family. Fixated bunch, you Argents." Nuts, too, Bobby wanted to add, but held his tongue. "Kind of an odd coincidence, you calling me."

Chris sighed on the other end. _"I might have some notion of why. I know you've never worked for my family, and you have no reason to hear me out, but I need to request a favor of you. And I need there to be no questions asked."_

"Honor among hunters, huh?" Bobby huffed. "Horseshit. Heard some rumors lately about the way your family does business. I don't think I've made it a secret that I'm not interested in working with your bunch. I just turned down one of your cast-offs this morning for just that reason."

" _What cast-off?"_ Chris asked. " _Who was there?"_

Bobby blinked at the question, surprised by the urgency in the other man's voice. "I'm guessing that's not why you called. If this isn't about Mitchell showing his ass, what _is_ it about?"

" _Mitchell Roden? He came to see you?_ " Chris swore under his breath. " _Did he say anything about Beacon Hills?_

"I didn't give him time to say much. Anyone working for Gerard Argent doesn't get my intel. Which, now that I think about it, includes his son. So how about you cut to it, or we end this conversation now."

" _Gerard's not in the picture anymore_ ," Chris assured. " _But it might take more than a warning to get rid of Mitchell. The man's a bit…enthusiastic. He was loyal to Gerard to a fault. Most of the family's hired help left on their own, but Mitchell took my father's recent fall from grace the worst. Singer, was anyone else at your house when Mitchell came to see you?"_

Bobby's eyes narrowed. "You're dancing. I'm hanging up."

" _Singer, wait!_ " Chris snapped.

"Spill," Bobby barked.

" _Fine. I called about a kid. Stiles Stilinski."_

Bobby thought he might be losing his hearing. "How the hell do you know Stiles?"

" _He's my daughter's friend. There's nothing supernatural about him…He's normal. We'd like him to stay that way. That's the favor. I was calling to ask you to make sure he stays out of our business. But, if Mitchell saw him there, he might have recognized the boy from a little mix-up we had in Beacon Hills."_

Bobby scowled. "Gotta go, Argent. Got a casserole in the oven."

" _Sing-_ "

Bobby cut the man off and snatched up a set of keys for the van he'd hoped to retire. Jody Mills was going to kill him for this.

"Balls."

* * *

Animal attacks. Paralyzed victims. Murders that didn't quite add up. Several very bizarre crime patterns over several decades, currently at the spiked end of the graph.

Jody had promised not to look into Stiles any further, but the odd occurrences in Beacon Hills kept itching at the back of her mind. She was almost certain there was something supernatural happening in that town. Her instinct was to call Bobby Singer and ask him to look into the evidence, but she'd held back so far.

Mostly because of Noah. He was the sheriff, the guy Bobby would have to work around if he investigated. She didn't want to chance Noah finding out about the things that go bump in the night. There were enough problems in the world without adding the dead rising from the grave. She was afraid, though, that even without her interference, he might find out on his own.

He was the one looking into Stiles. Into whatever his son was lying to him about, and Jody was afraid she might be getting a clearer image of what might distancing him from his son. The details were still blurry, but she was certain of one thing: her nephew knew something about whatever was reeking havoc on Beacon Hills. He was at too many scenes, witness to too many of the bizarre occurrences in his home town, to not have noticed what was happening. Which meant she was finally beginning to understand why he was lying to his father.

Jody groaned, letting her head fall forward to hit her desk. If any passing deputy noticed her through the blinds on her door's window, they didn't comment.

After a moment, she felt a small vibration, followed by the sound of her cell phone's ringtone. What she wouldn't pay for it to be a work call instead. She frowned when she saw Singer's name across the screen.

"What did he break today?" she asked, in greeting.

Bobby was quiet a moment, which worried her. His reply worried her even more. "We need to talk about Stiles."

"Funny, that's my line," she replied.

* * *

"You're a liar."

Stiles' vision blurred slightly as he stared at the stained green button-up shirt hovering in his view. The hunter's words seemed to bounce around his ears a few times before making their way inside. When they soaked in, a breathy chuckle came out in reply.

"Yeah, I am," Stiles answered.

He cocked his head up, despite the pain in his shoulders, and forced himself to meet the man's eyes. Mitchell. Mitchell had been nice enough to introduce himself when they'd reached his humble abode, AKA an abandoned house the man was obviously squatting in, if the sleeping bag rolled up against one wall was any indication. By then, though, Stiles recognized the man, if not by name. He'd seen that face before, clean-shaven instead of wearing that hideous mustache. He'd seen him, if only for a moment, when during a particularly stressful lacrosse game, the goon had forced Stiles into Gerard Argent's SUV.

"I am a liar," Stiles continued, feeling winded. "But I'm not lying about Gerard. He wanted a werewolf to bite him and cure his cancer. That's why he was after the alpha."

Mitchell glared down at him, his dark eyes narrowed in thought. Without replying, he stepped around Stiles, just out of his eye sight. Stiles wanted to twist his neck, see where he'd gone, but he couldn't from his current position, afraid that his tied ankles might make him lose his balance. Next time he was abducted by a crazy man, he was demanding chair. Instead, he was stuck standing, his arms forced behind him and pulled up slightly by a rope hanging taunt from the ceiling so that his shoulders were hunched forward. He was sure he'd only been standing for ten minutes, but it felt like an hour had passed. His fingertips were already painfully numb.

A second later he realized where Mitchell had disappeared to when he felt a sharp tug at his wrists. The rope jerked up a few inches, forcing his back to bend further. Stiles gasped in pain, shocked that such a slight change had hurt so badly.

"A hunter would die before allowing themselves to be turned into a beast," Mitchell said. The man circled Stiles, his boots just barely in his eye sight. "Gerard was the best hunter I'd ever worked with. He understood sacrifice. He would have killed his own child if it meant ending a monster's life. You're either a liar, or you believe your pack's lies."

"My pack?" Stiles tried to bite back a laugh. It hurt too much to breath at the moment. "I was there, buddy. Want proof, ask Chris Argent. He knows what happened. In fact, why don't you call Chris right now. I'm sure he can straighten this out."

"That coward chased me out of town, then fled without even attempting to seek justice for his father. I can't believe a word he says either." Mitchell's boots stopped somewhere near the side of Stiles' head. "The old man was too merciful with you. He knew you were lying with the dogs. He knew you were involved with them when they killed Kate. He should have put you down like you were one of them, but instead, he kept you alive. He gave you a warning to scare you away from the mutts…Looks like you didn't heed it."

"Warning? That what you call kicking my ass." Stiles grimaced. "If Gerard was on the straight and narrow, then why did he become a kanima's master? Huh? Sounds a little too seven degrees of monster-hood for me."

"It was a means to an end," Mitchell snapped. He pinched Stiles' ear, yanking at his head as he bent down to his level. "Gerard had a plan," he growled into his face, " to clean house. To destroy that mangy pack. To give the Argents a fresh slate for his granddaughter to inherit. He shared his plans with those of us he was closest to, so don't think I'm an idiot, boy. I know what he knew about you. His intel. You're the pack bitch, the _pet_ human. Did they promise you the bite if you did their dirty work?"

He let go of Stiles, standing upright.

"You are so off base here, moron." Stiles closed his eyes, trying not to focus on the pain running up his arms, slithering across his spine. It felt like someone had jabbed a spike between his shoulder blades. "Is that why you took me? Because you think I helped hurt your boss' rep?"

"The truth will come out," Mitchell assured him, "but I didn't take you so I hear you lie about Gerard. You know why you're here, Stiles. Did you really think I'd let you get away with spying on another hunter for your pack?"

"Spying?" Stiles wanted to laugh, but the stinging at his eyes told him that wasn't the response his body was going for. He bit the inside of his cheek, trying to force his panic down. He couldn't let this guy see him lose it. He couldn't be the one to beg. To cry. "Dear God, a conspiracy this big must have its own Youtube channel," he spat out.

The soft, slow beat of Mitchell's boots hitting the wooden floor were pounding in Stiles' head. He already knew where the man was going. What was coming next.


	8. Chapter 8

Bobby didn't like this. Not one bit. He saw Jody's sedan pull up out of the corner of his eye and grimaced, jerking his head in her direction to make sure she followed him down the sidewalk. He heard her footsteps behind him as she caught up, but neither of them said a word until Bobby turned the corner to the side of the building.

"What did you find?" Jody asked.

Bobby shook his head. Not what he'd wanted to find. Who he'd wanted to find. When he'd arrived at the hardware store before Jody, he'd hoped to find the Chevelle waiting, Stiles inside, wasting time asking old Mr. Greene stupid questions. He hadn't been so lucky.

With a sigh, Bobby fished the phone out of his pocket, holding it out to Jody. "Jim Greene said he saw Stiles about an hour ago. Kid bought what was on my list and left with it. Stiles didn't park up front, so no one noticed if he drove away. Found this on the sidewalk over here. Screen's cracked. Looks like it was dropped or tossed. The text alert for my last few messages is on the lock screen, though. Stiles never saw it."

"He could've dropped it," Jody said.

Her voice sounded pinched, like her throat was swollen. She didn't believe it either. Bobby didn't want to look her in the face, see the emotion raking over her. He didn't voice his agreement, because it didn't exist.

"My Chevelle isn't here, but I found something else I recognized." Bobby kept moving. When they reached the end of the block, the narrow street cut off into a back lot. There was a truck parked there, a dull, matte green he'd seen earlier in the day. "The hunter I told you about? He was in that truck this morning. He's not here now."

"He took your car," Jody said, catching on. "He took Stiles in your car."

Bobby watched her as she all but ran forward, searching the truck over. The bastard hadn't locked it, and Bobby wagered it was probably stolen anyhow. If it wasn't, if Mitchell really didn't care if it was found or not…well, that's wasn't exactly a good sign as to his current mental state. Bobby cleared his throat, pulling Jody's attention from the truck.

"We don't know for sure," he tried to supply.

Jody's expression was pure annoyance. "Don't play that card with me, Bobby Singer. I'm in law enforcement." She hesitated, swallowing hard. "This, this type of work is my job."

"Not when it's your nephew." When she didn't reply, Bobby sighed. "Since you haven't called this in yet, I'm guessing you're not exactly planning to follow your own rule book. Mind me asking how you're going to play this?"

Jody took a step back from the truck, giving it a long stare. "I lost him, didn't I?" She blinked, and Bobby pretended not to notice the wetness in her eyes. "How am I supposed to tell my brother I lost his son, Bobby?"

"I'd suggest you don't," he answered, as honestly as he could.

She let out a laugh, but he could hear the sob underneath. "I should have told you, the moment I realized Stiles knew something about the supernatural."

Bobby reached out, squeezing her shoulder gently. He wasn't sure if he was doing it right. The gesture felt tense, awkward. She must not have minded, though, because she reached up across her chest, squeezing his hand once in return before letting go. Bobby let his arm drop away, hoping the sentiment had been clear enough. He wasn't very good at this whole comforting thing.

"You didn't know for sure," Bobby told her. "And even if you did, I should have never let the kid near my place. But instead of standing around, laying blame, I think we need to get our asses moving. Work the case, Sheriff. What do we do next?"

"We find Mitchell Roden." Jody took a shaky breath and straightened. "He's not from around here, but he has hunter contacts. You know how these guys travel, where they stay when they're on the move, right? Let's find this bastard then."

* * *

"If you keep this up, the damage to your nerves is going to be permanent. Eventually, your arms are going to dislocate. It'll happen even faster if you lose your balance. Don't you go passing out," Mitchell commented, sounding almost concerned.

"Don't pass out. Wise words," Stiles muttered. "Extremely helpful."

Mitchell didn't seem to hear him. "You won't heal. You're not like your friends."

Stiles tried and failed not to scream out when his arms raised another three inches, his knees wobbling at the movement. His feet were barely touching the ground, barely giving him the support he needed. He imagined what he must look like, bent forward, his arms twisted high. It was almost comical, certainly humiliating, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

"So," he said, voice trembling. "You're saying there's a chance of you not killing me. Because that's what I'm hearing."

Mitchell sighed. "That all depends on what you say next. Now tell me, what did your pack have planned for Bobby Singer?"

Stiles blinked, trying to clear his vision, but it was still blurred along the edges. He wasn't sure if it was because of the pain or because he couldn't seem to catch his breath, but he was certain he'd be blacking out soon. Not a good idea, as Mitchell had been so kind to tell him, but Stiles wasn't sure he'd be able to hold on, no matter the consequence.

"I'm not working with a pack." Stiles took a few shallow breaths, trying to wiggle his arms, find a way to loosen the ropes at his wrists, but it seemed impossible. He couldn't even feel anything past his shoulders to know if he was actually moving or not. "I didn't know Bobby was even a hunter, not for sure. Not until today."

"Where are they staying?"

Stiles stared at the floor, at the tips of Mitchell's boots. "Who?"

"The rest of the pack. Or did they send you on your own?" Mitchell asked. "It's a good plan, really, infiltrating a hunter's home. Using a human to get close. How far did they want you to take it? Were they going to have you train as a hunter? Learn our secrets?"

Stiles closed his eyes, feeling nauseous. "It doesn't matter what I say, does it? You're too nutballs to listen."

"Maybe Gerard was right to use you as a message for the wolves," Mitchell mused. "What do you think, Stiles? Think the mutts will learn not to play tricks if I send you back to them?"

Stiles could see the sharp steel edge as it reflected in the dim light sifting through the boarded window. It was a knife dangling loosely from Mitchell's fingertips. "Please…" Stiles bit his lip to keep from saying more. "My dad's going to kill you," he said. It wasn't a threat.

His body shook in anticipation, this blood thundering in his ears so loudly, he almost didn't hear it at first, the sound coming from outside. What he did notice was the sudden shift from Mitchell, the man quickly jumping back, behind Stiles.

"There they are, there they are," Mitchell whispered, sounding almost pleased.

Howls.

Stiles could hear them sounding from around the house. For a moment he thought he might be imagining the sound, because they couldn't be real. Scott was back in Beacon Hills. Safe. Derek, every werewolf Stiles knew was back home. There was no way they could know what was happening. No way anyone could. Jody was still at work. Bobby was probably ready to kick his butt for taking so long at the hardware store.

"They probably think I'm an idiot," Mitchell said, his voice manic. "I've been around, though. I know the tricks. Let's see them try and pass the mountain ash I put around this house."

Stiles' lip curled with a tired grin. "Whoever that is, I don't think they're here for me."

Stiles heard Mitchell moving behind him, going for a weapon, if he had a guess. A gun, because hunters loved their guns. Stiles felt his mouth going dry. What if he was wrong, what if those were friends out there? Even if they weren't, they were still people that were going to die thanks to the moron behind him.

"I'm going to throw up," he muttered.

He could imagine it, his aunt finding his body eventually, him hanging like this in the summer heat, head nearly dipped down in a puddle of his own vomit. His eyes stung at the thought that his dad would never understand why it happened.

Black was closing in around Stiles' vision, but at the center of the tunnel, he saw movement. A hallucination, he realized. Which, were you supposed to realize a hallucination was a hallucination so quickly, he wondered? He wanted to laugh, maybe cry a bit too, but definitely laugh at what his oxygen deprived brain was cooking up. Because there was a cat, strolling through the house like it owned the place. Big, fat, and orange, it trotted up to Stiles, leaving gray footprints behind it.

" 'Sat the mountain ash?" Stiles asked. He squinted. "I know that cat."

Mitchell didn't seem to hear him, or care what he said. His boot-steps were frantic, echoing from one side of the room to the other. The sound of a clip being loaded was all to familiar to Stiles, thanks to years of video games. When Mitchell's voice did return, he sounded giddy. A kid on Christmas morning.

"Don't worry, Stiles," Mitchell said. He placed a hand on Stiles' spine, patting his back once with his fingertips. Stiles could feel the handle of the knife against the man's palm. "If I get to spill their blood, I won't have to spill yours. That's a fair trade off for you, isn't…What is that cat do-?"

Mitchell's voice cut off with a wet sound, water gurgling up a pipe. Stiles felt the pipe burst, a spray across his back. It took him a second longer before his brain caught up. There wasn't a pipe in the room. That wasn't water.

A clatter sounded, then a heavy thud as the weapon's owner followed it to the floor. The rope at his wrists jerked slightly before suddenly releasing. Stiles' nose was an inch from a wooden plank when an arm scooped beneath, cradling him at his stomach and pulling him to the closest wall. He fell against it, his shoulder pressed to the peeling paint, and slid down to the floor.

"Don't look," a voice warned, before he could twist his head and see where Mitchell had fallen. "That fella made quite the mess."

Stiles' eyes widened. "Ms. Rose?"

The old woman smiled gently, despite the spray of red staining the front of her pastel yellow cardigan. "There, there, dear boy. You're with friends now."

A howl sounded from outside. The woman looked up at the sound, tutting to herself before the eyes behind her tinted glasses glowed red. She raised her chin, answering the call with a deep howl of her own. Stiles winced at the sound, and it shook him out of his stupor.

"That Rue, always the impatient one," Rose said.

"Holy crap." He shook his head. " _You're_ …an alpha?"

"Honestly, child, quit acting as if it's a surprise," Rose chided. She reached behind him, bloody claws tearing at the rope around his wrists, then the one around his ankles. "If I were a lesser woman, I'd be offended by that tone."

"You had me move your furniture!"

Stiles' outrage turned on him as hot pain shot through his arms. He could feel them again, at least in an oh-god-are-they-on-fire way, as the blood rushed back into his limbs. Rose reached out, clasping his forearms, and black tendrils swam beneath her paper-thin skin.

"That should help for a bit," she said, "but I imagine your hands won't be good for much over the next few days. I suppose I'll have to wait about getting you to paint my birdfeeder. Maybe next week…" She frowned a moment before standing back up. Stiles didn't have the strength to follow the movement. He simply stared at her, the slight hunch to her back, the thin white curls on her head, the lines creasing her face. But she wasn't moving slow any more. There was strength in her limbs, power in her tiny stature.

"So, Rue and Dorothy?"

"Watching the perimeter," she chirped. "I had hoped to make proper introductions after you met the rest of my pack, but they all insisted we find out what type of young man you were first. Just because you're pack, doesn't mean you're good people, after all. I told them, though, I told them, 'If my Freckles likes him, he's fine by me.' We planned to throw you a luncheon to discuss our pack alliances as soon as you were finished working for that sweet Mr. Singer. Then of course, this ruffian had to appear and ruin it."

Freckles seemed to hear his name. He walked over to Stiles, rubbing his head against the teen's leg affectionately. Then he promptly lost interest and collapsed onto the floor to lick himself.

Stiles raised a brow. "You know Singer is a hunter, right?"

Rose waved a hand. "Of course he is. That's one of the reasons we chose to settle here. A decent hunter keeps away all the nasties, you know. He keeps the territory safe. We're too on in years to do it ourselves."

"Does he know?"

"About us? Oh heavens no. Dorothy bakes the dear man a cake every once in a while in thanks, but it's better not to speak of such things, isn't it? Peaceful werewolves have been hiding under hunters noses for years, you know. I fancy Mr. Singer probably doesn't even know much about true werewolves, just those wild breeds, off ripping and maiming, eating hearts." Rose's faint smile dimmed. "Though I suppose he might be somewhat suspicious of this mess I've made."

Stiles glanced the edge of the dead man's boots and tried not to look too closely at the rest of him. "I'm a decent liar," he offered.

Stiles almost said the wrong thing. He almost pointed out that she could have let Mitchell live, let Jody arrest his ass. But in doing so, Mitchell probably would have realized what Rose was, gotten word to other hunters. A bit of mercy later, Rose might have lost her pack, at the least, her home. Stiles didn't know what that said about his moral compass, that he was so quick to understand the reason why someone needed to be ripped apart. Scott wouldn't have liked it, the "mess" as Rose had put it, but Stiles had long since realized he didn't always see things the way Scott did, as much as he loved his bro. So he _almost_ brought it up, but didn't, because he was in no position to question the person who'd just saved his life.

Which, about that:

"How'd you know I was in trouble?" Stiles asked. He straightened slightly. "You're the one who has been watching me…In the cemetery?"

Rose hummed to herself. "Well, it wouldn't do for you to get hurt on my watch, now would it. That's all we'd need, a rival wolf pack angry with us old gals. Now, you wouldn't think it, but my packmates love gossip. When one of them mentioned the Sheriff's nephew was coming in from Beacon Hills, well, my ears perked up. Your home, it's a special sort of place, always has been the talk of our kind, even back when I was a pup, so I simply had to meet you, see if there was any news of odd happens. Sure enough, as soon as you stepped through my door I smelled the pack on you."

"Pack?" Stiles asked. "I'm not really…I mean, my best friend is a werewolf, and he's been in my closet, but… You could smell that?"

"You don't live as long as I have without learning all the tricks," Rose said, tapping the tip of her nose with one finger. "I picked up on it right away, what the wolves you left behind had left behind on you. It's just common courtesy, looking after another pack's members when they cross into your territory. Nothing wrong with making allies, now is there?"

* * *

On his best day, Stiles wasn't great at waiting. This was definitely wasn't his best day, but he somehow managed the twenty minutes he had to spend outside, sitting on the dilapidated front porch of the old house. Despite the fact that the whole structure seemed to be leaning slightly, there was no way he was abandoning the slight shade to sit in Bobby's smelly Chevelle. And even if he'd been willing to grope Mitchell to find the keys, he wasn't sure his numb hands could turn the engine over, much less drive anywhere.

So waiting. Fun.

It was still bright and sunny outside, barely after noon, and that seemed strange to Stiles, that there was still so much of his day left.

The sound of tires crunching weren't exactly a surprise. The fact that it was an old van instead of a patrol car driving down the driveway was unexpected though. Rose had assured him that a "neighbor" was going to phone in a tip, say they saw Singer's old car drive into an abandoned house place and were worried someone might be breaking in. Stiles had been slightly afraid that the tip would be too vague for anyone to check out, that he'd have to go pat down Mitchell after all, test his ability to crack the hunter's cell phone password. It was probably Gerard. Lame ass.

Looked like it wasn't going to come to that though; he could see who was driving through the front window. He hadn't been sure if it would be them, if they'd even notice he was gone. The fact that they were together meant they'd figured out what had happened, or Bobby had.

Stiles had barely managed to stand when the old van rolled to a stop, and he took the steps slowly. His werewolf vicodin was wearing off fast. Thankfully, he didn't have to move another inch.

Jody was faster than he'd expected, out of the side of the van and on him in a second. She didn't say a word, just grabbed him by the upper arms, holding him steady, looking him over. Her eyes were red around the edges, and Stiles swallowed hard.

"I'm okay," Stiles said. "Really. I am."

"Shut up," Jody ordered. But she sounded like she was choking. "God, you scared me."

 _Yes, God, nice scare there, kudos_ , Stiles mentally sneered, but he couldn't manage to crack the joke aloud.

Without warning, Jody pulled him in, hugging him. He was taller than her, but for some reason, her hugs felt like his dad's. Stiles closed his eyes, wishing his weak arms had the ability to hug her back, even if it hurt a little. How could he care about hurting someone he'd only really known a week? He wasn't sure, but family was weird that way.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, against her shoulder.

"I sent you with a damned shopping list," Bobby griped from behind her. The hunter took a bit more time to get out of the van, but he arrived with revolver in hand, aimed toward the house. "Where's Mitchell?" he barked.

They'd put it together then, who'd taken him. It was going to be harder to spin a story, with Bobby there to recognize Mitchell, and see the claw marks across his corpse. Stiles shook his head when he realized they hadn't even asked him what had happened. This was not the way he'd imagined this going. So much for a cover up.

"He's _so_ not a problem right now," Stiles said, grimacing. "Inside."

Bobby went through the door first. Jody ordered Stiles to stay put and followed after him. Stiles waited for something, anything, but he couldn't hear the two. They came out a few long minutes later, their expressions suspiciously unreadable.

Stiles raised his brow, the picture of innocence. "Wasn't me," he said, maybe a bit too quickly.

* * *

Sometimes there were perks to being related to the sheriff, any sheriff really. Stiles figured that out when they were giving their statements to a naive young deputy.

The story was this:

Mitchell Roden (previous warrants for trespassing, vandalism, and assault) was a disturbed man who'd been become fixated with Stiles Stilinski while living in Beacon Hills. He followed Stiles to Sioux Falls, stalking his prey until he saw a chance to abduct the teenager. Stiles was able to escape his captor and hide in the woods. Mitchell chased him, then doubled back when he was attacked by a wild animal. The creature followed him back into the house and killed him. Stiles waited for a rescue. He didn't see the animal attack. But it was probably a mountain lion.

Totally believable.

* * *

"Dad, I promise, everything is fine. I'm fine. I _did_ see a doctor, Dad. You realize you can't actually stay on the phone with me until you get here , right? I will…We'll see you at the airport. Do you want to talk to Jody again?"

Jody waved her arms frantically, trying to stop him, but it was too late. The cell phone was already in her hands. Not for the first time that day. She glared at Stiles, then turned to speak to Noah in the hallway.

Bobby bit down a chuckle as Stiles plopped back down at the take-out covered dinner table, digging around for an egg roll in one of the bags. It was odd, how at home the kid seemed at Jody's place. Most people, Bobby knew, would be curled up in the fetal position after the day he'd had, but Stiles just look, well, hungry.

"Did you eat all the spicy mustard?" he asked.

"How long you think your pop's going to buy this story?" Bobby asked him.

"It's easier to believe in crazy people than werewolves ," Stiles said, shrugging. He sat down his food, glaring down at the stark bruises on his wrists. "I'm going to have to tell him eventually, aren't I?"

Bobby grunted in agreement. "Depends though. You turn away now, get as far from the supernatural as you can, maybe you won't."

Bobby didn't need an answer from the boy. He could see the look in his eye. The kid played it off, but he was trapped by the life already, whether he wanted to be or not.

While Stiles had enjoyed a visit to the ER, Bobby had made a call to Chris Argent and held out on info until the other hunter had finally admitted what Bobby had already guessed, that Stiles was involved in the supernatural. A friend of werewolves, in fact. Of all the stupid things to be… Argent had, somewhat begrudgingly, given Bobby a bit more information on the particular breed his family hunted. Bobby still didn't believe any sort of werewolf could control itself, but he also couldn't believe another hunter would lie about such a thing. Even so, control or not, dangerous was dangerous, and Bobby didn't like the thought of the kid sittin' in Algebra with a time bomb.

"Even if you do get away from it all, though," Bobby said, "I figure that it's still good to be prepared. And if you do stick around? Well, you've got a lot to learn, kid," Bobby mused. "I don't envy someone starting out."

Bobby snapped his mouth shut, not meaning to phrase it like the kid was going to end up in his line of work. He didn't want to plant any ideas, even if he'd been considering nudging the boy in that direction since they'd talked about Mitchell. He hadn't known Stiles all that long, but he knew hunting was all guts and research. Stiles seemed to be fit for it.

If Stiles realized what Bobby was implying, he ignored it.

"You know what I could learn from? Books." Stiles looked up through his lashes, the bruise on his face playing in his favor as he pouted slightly. "You have a few of those, don't you?"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "You want in my library? Then tell me who ripped Mitchell apart."

"I'm taking it to my grave," Stiles said, too pleased to be holding out. Bobby figured that giddy grin on his face might have something to do with the meds the doctors had given him for his shoulders.

"What do you want on your tombstone?" Bobby teased.

"Hardy-har-har." Stiles shook his head, amused. "Seriously, though, man, the one who caught up with Mitchell lives in your town. Has for a long time. If they were dangerous, you'd know about it, right? That's how you know how to hunt things, right? Because of the trail of bodies? Well, this one has only left _a_ body behind, and that was to save me. They drop another? Then fine. I'll spill."

"I see your point," Bobby admitted, begrudgingly. "Doesn't mean I'll sleep any easier knowing there's a wolf pack under my nose."

"Don't be species-ist."

"Let me introduce you to a few vampires and ghouls, then you tell me about your supernatural pals, kid." Bobby took a swig from his beer and noticed Stiles had quieted. "What's that look for?"

Stiles glanced over his shoulder. Bobby realized he was looking for Jody, to see if she was back in the room. She wasn't.

"Aunt Jody found out about this stuff after her husband died, didn't she?"

Bobby swallowed hard. His drink tasted a bit bitter. "Put that together on your own?"

"I knew something supernatural had killed Sean. The story had too many red flags. Much like the one we just told my dad." Stiles sighed to himself and turned back to face Bobby. "What killed Sean Mills?"

"Not too long back, the dead rose out of their graves." Bobby didn't care much for this story. He downed the rest of his beer and wished for something harder. If he'd been at his own place instead of Jody's, he would have found it. "Jody found out then. It was all miracles and hugs until the dead started acting the part and snacking on their loved ones."

Stiles paled. "Owen."

"Yep." Bobby shook his head. "You still apt to learn?"

"Good to be prepared," Stiles replied, quietly. He looked up, this expression dark. "I want to know how to take care of the people I care about, Bobby. Protect them."

Bobby considered it a moment. "You still owe me a few days of work, don't ya?"

Stiles grinned. "I sure do. And I'm a crap mechanic."

"You sure are." Bobby sighed when Jody walked back into the room. She was going to kill him for this. "Guess I could use someone on phone duty," he finally offered.

Stiles' smile widened when Jody settled back down into her seat, giving the two of them a long look, as if she knew they were up to something.

"As long as," Stiles concluded, "I still have time to help the little old ladies around the neighborhood."

* * *

 **FIN**

* * *

 **Story End Notes:** Thank you for reading! Your support of this story has been wonderful. I know I left a few questions hanging (for an ending, it was more like a beginning, right?), but I have ideas for future stories in this universe. While it might be a few weeks before I get started on these ideas, I'm planning some one shots spread throughout the summer, then perhaps a sequel long-fic that picks up later. Any thoughts about this would be greatly appreciated.

For your convenience, since this site doesn't do a great job with grouping series, I will post any one-shots I write onto the end of this story. I will also make a teaser post when I start a sequel, so you can subscribe to this story if you want to know when these start. Of course, if you want to read other works of mine, feel free to subscribe to me.

Thanks again. XOXO


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